—ON THE PICKET LINE—

Maggie Trowe, Editor

CUNY faculty, workers protest years of no wage hike, contract

NEW YORK — Hundreds of professors and teaching assistants, some holding ringing alarm clocks, picketed Oct. 1 at 7:30 a.m. in a “contract protest wake-up call” outside the apartment building here where City University of New York Chancellor James Milliken lives.

They were joined by other area workers, including hotel workers fighting for a union and participants in the campaign for $15 and a union, and many students.

“Everything else is going up. Rent. Food. But we haven’t had a wage increase,” said library worker Geng Lin, 32. “There are no serious negotiations going on.”

The protest was organized by the Professional Staff Congress/Local 2334 of the American Federation of Teachers. The union represents some 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University system’s 24 campuses. The teachers and 10,000 members of American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees District Council 37, which organizes maintenance workers, drivers and others at the university, have been without a contract for five years and have had no wage increase in six. At the same time, tuition has increased 38 percent.

The Professional Staff Congress is planning more actions, including a mass protest Nov. 4.

—Seth Galinsky

Quebec teachers strike against concessions and education cuts

MONTREAL — After picketing French-language public schools here, in Laval and other regions of Quebec, several thousand striking teachers and students supporting them marched and rallied here Sept. 30. Some 34,000 unionists organized by the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (Autonomous Teachers Federation) held the first of three planned one-day strikes protesting the concession contract and school budget cuts pushed by the Quebec government.

“We’ve had more than 60 negotiating sessions with the government, but they refuse to budge,” Badiâa Sekfali, who teaches French to adults, told the Militant. “They want to freeze our salaries for two years and give only a 1 percent increase each of the following three years.”

“The government subsidizes the private schools by 60 percent and cuts the budget for public education,” said teacher Carole Kucherski at the picket line in front of Ste-Cécile elementary school. “And they are attacking our union contract, increasing hours from 32 to 40 a week without a pay raise.”

The next day parents active in the campaign “I protect my public school” organized human chains around more than 350 French- and English-language schools with 35,000 participating across the province.

— Beverly Bernardo

New Zealand hardware store workers fight ‘flexible’ rosters

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Hundreds of workers at Bunnings hardware chain, members of the FIRST union, are organizing strikes at stores across New Zealand after rejecting company demands for more “flexible” rosters.

Workers at the Manukau store here walked off the job for two hours at peak shopping time Sept. 26, joining supporters and workers from several other stores in a lively 50-strong protest on the busy street in front. Similar actions took place at 16 other stores the same day.

The national contract between Bunnings and FIRST expired in June. The proposed new contract would change workers’ current fixed rosters to a fortnightly schedule of between 10 and 80 hours, which could be changed with two weeks’ notice. Under the previous contract the company had to seek workers’ agreement before making any changes.

“Now we would have no say,” Cheryl, a worker at the Manukau store, who asked that her last name not be used, told the Militant. She joined the union after she and two other workers realized that for months they had missed out on paid days off in lieu of public holidays they had worked. “I’ve never been in a union before, but I’m happy we’re standing up for our rights,” she said.

“About half of the workers at the store are now in the union. It has grown a lot over the last few months,” shop steward Lina Manu said.

—Felicity Coggan