—ON THE PICKET LINE—

Locked-out workers in Quebec pledge
to stay the course

LONGUEUIL, Quebec — Hundreds of workers rallied and marched here Nov. 20 in solidarity with nine locked-out mechanics at the Kia dealership.

Serge Minguy, who owns the Kia dealership as well as the Mazda and Nissan franchises next door, locked the mechanics out two months ago. Since then the workers, members of Unifor Local 4511, have kept up their picket line, bolstered by workers from other unionized dealerships who drop by after work.

Minguy wants to impose a four-year wage freeze. “We’re standing up to him,” Remi Lambert, a mechanic at the dealership and local shop steward, told the Militant. “We refuse to concede, we’ve conceded enough in the past.”

Workers have to pay for a lot of their own tools, Lambert said. He estimates he’s spent $50,000 himself. The boss refuses to pay the 1 percent obligated by law towards a pension for the nine mechanics. He does pay this for all other workers at the three dealerships.

“We’re a real team, almost brothers,” Lambert said, describing the nine striking mechanics. “We’ve stood together, and we’re going to continue to stand together.”

Unifor organizes the majority of autoworkers in Canada, with 55,000 members in Quebec.

— Annette Kouri and Pierre-Luc Filion

Part-time teachers strike, win support from students, unionists

CHICAGO — Some 50 part-time teachers walked the strike picket in front of Columbia College downtown here Nov. 29. An equal number of students and unionists, including members of the Chicago Teachers Union, joined them. The action was part of a two-day strike by the Part-Time Faculty Association of Columbia College, protesting college bosses’ attacks on job security, seniority and wages. They carried a large banner reading, “We stand for students, not for profits.”

“The top of the pay scale for us is $30,000 per year when we teach a full load. The administration says that’s too much. And most of us don’t teach a full load,” William O’Conner, a theater instructor with 21 years seniority, told the Militant. “Over 70 percent of the faculty here is part time.”

The association represents 1,200 part-time faculty members. Their contract expired in August.

“While tuition has increased, the number of courses and size of faculty have decreased,” President Diana Vallera said in a statement printed in Crain’s Chicago Business. “The administration must value students enough to funnel resources into experienced faculty and a well-developed curriculum, not administrators’ salaries.”

“We have no job security. We don’t know how many courses we will teach semester to semester,” Andrea Dymond, who also teaches in the theater department, said on the picket line. “We have our next bargaining session in two days. This is near the end of the semester and if we don’t get a contract, we’ll have to continue the strike in January when school starts again.”

— Dan Fein

 
 
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