This column is devoted to reporting the resistance by working people to the employers' assault on their living standards, working conditions, and unions.

We invite you to contribute short items to this column as a way for other fighting workers around the world to read about and learn from these important struggles. Jot down a few lines about what is happening in your union, at your workplace, or other workplaces in your area, including interesting political discussions.

MIAMI BEACH, Florida - Seventy-five unionists and others picketed outside a Publix supermarket here May 31 demanding that the store stop selling Prime mushrooms, grown by Quincy Farms.

Quincy Farms dismissed 85 workers in March after they joined a lunchtime demonstration organized by the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) calling for higher wages and better working conditions. Twenty-five workers were arrested for "trespassing."

Five farm workers fired from Quincy drove 10 hours to be part of the May 31 demonstration outside Publix, the largest grocery chain in Southern Florida.

Signs in English and Spanish reading, "Boycott Prime Mushrooms" and "Support the Farm Workers" were held up along with dozens of red flags with the farm worker symbol, a black eagle in a white circle in the middle.

The picketers gave shoppers leaflets promoting the mushroom boycott.

"We want justice," Eudocia Calderón told the crowd. "We're the ones who pick the food people eat. We deserve a better wage."

The farm workers get paid piece rates and many make less than $5 an hour. Calderón, 26, worked at Quincy Farms outside Tallahassee for eight years before she was fired. "It's not just wages," she said in an interview. "Working there is unsafe. There are many accidents."

The workers brought pictures taken at the farm to prove their point. They often have to pick mushrooms from planters stacked 15 or 20 feet high. They have to balance precariously without ladders between two rows to get to the highest ones.

"Then when someone gets hurt, they say it's our own fault," Calderón explained. There have also been problems of sexual harassment on the job.

Unions represented at the Publix picket line included the Maritime Workers Union; Transportation Workers Union; United Teachers of Dade County; AFL-CIO Central Labor Council; Teamsters; Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees; and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

There were also members of the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, the Women's Political Caucus, and the Greater Miami Rabbinical Association. Laura Garza, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. vice president, also joined the protest.

Rebecca Flores Harrington, national vice-president of the UFW, said "We won't give up until the workers at Prime have a union." The UFW has been organizing picket lines and demonstrations around the state.

Catering workers strike at Vancouver airport
RICHMOND, British Columbia - On May 14, some 180 members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 2213 went out on strike against Cathay, Lufthansa, Skychef Catering (CLS) at the Vancouver Airport.

The majority of strikers are women. The workforce is multinational and young, composed mainly of Fijian, Chinese, Punjabi and Filipino born workers.

"From day one the company brought in goons who tried to intimidate us. By the end of the first day several strikers had been pushed around, knocked down, and had heard racist abuse," explained CAW Local 2213 bargaining committee chairman Dave Dixon.

"On day two, dozens of delegates from the Canadian Labor Congress convention being held in Vancouver arrived to bring solidarity," said Dixon. The thugs "fled when confronted with this group of irate unionists, leaving the kitchen open for the visiting delegates to tour at their leisure," he added.

The determination of the strikers and support from other airport workers resulted in the removal of company goons by a court order, the right for union members to make random kitchen inspections, and a court prohibition of the use of scabs working off site.

The workers rejected a "final offer" by the company of a wage freeze for three years, no more shift premiums, reduced dental coverage, no more double time for overtime, and work rule changes that would amount to speed up.

Arlene Labrador, a former student activist in the Philippines and striker, said, "The manager called us a bunch of Filipino nannies and stupid drivers during a meeting before the strike. But we're going to stand up and fight."

Support from other airport workers has been outstanding according to Dixon, "Whether it be aircraft fuelers refusing to touch aircraft catered by CLS, or doughnuts received from ramp workers, or the simple act of walking the picket line with us in the wee hours, a strong message has been sent to our employer."

NZ meat workers fight worsening conditions
TARANAKI, New Zealand - "We are fighting for a collective employment contract," meat workers at Hawera Processors told a team of Militant supporters who visited their picket line May 25. The workers are one of two groups of members of the Meat Workers Union of Aotearoa in the Taranaki region who have taken action to defend their jobs, wages, and their union in recent weeks.

At Riverlands Beef in Eltham, 110 workers have been locked out for twelve weeks. Riverlands is demanding wage cuts averaging 36 percent across the whole plant. The company's contract offer would mean an A-grade beef boner would drop from about NZ$23 per hour at present to about NZ$15 per hour (NZ$1 = US$0.67). Laborers would drop from NZ$17 to NZ$12 per hour. The company is also is demanding job cuts and increased output.

The workers have not had a cost-of-living raise since 1989. Since they are piece workers, all pay increases since then have been achieved by increasing output. In 1993 their piece rate was cut 7.8 percent.

The union members are picketing the plant. Freezers on the site are being operated by management staff to process production from the company's non-union killing plant at Bulls.

Meanwhile, at nearby Hawera Processors, 45 meat workers are into their sixth week of a strike. After the plant was privatized in 1989, the new owners began withholding union fees deducted from the workers' wages and refused to forward them to the union. Later the company de-unionized the plant and put workers on individual contracts.

When a night shift was hired earlier this year, their wages were significantly lower.

One worker told us that he was persuaded to go onto the night shift, and found that despite going up to a higher skill grade, his wages dropped by NZ$200 per week. While most piece workers earn about $16 per hour, one contract offered to nightshift workers guarantees them no more than the legal minimum wage of NZ$6.25 per hour.

Picketers reported that occasionally they have processed double the number of carcasses per worker per day as the current industry norm. Nightshift workers have been denied pay for public holidays.

The strike began when the boss told the day shift they would be laid off, while the night shift would continue working. Workers on both shifts are supporting the strike, despite mounting economic pressures.

An early attempt by the company to keep the plant running with scabs was pushed back. The strikers have joined the Meat Workers Union.

Workers at both plants are beginning to win support for their actions in the local communities.

The Hawera strikers participated in a golf tournament put on by the company for its farmer-suppliers. They entered a team in the competition, and took the opportunity to hand out leaflets explaining their stand to the farmers participating.

The Eltham workers were planning to demonstrate outside a public meeting for the rightist politician Winston Peters when he visited the region.

The Meat Workers Union is organizing speakers from both facilities to tour the unionized plants, and collections to support the strikers have been organized in a number of plants.

Seth Galinsky, member of United Transportation Union Local 1138 in Miami; Ned Dmytryshyn, member of International Association of Machinists Lodge 721 in Vancouver, and James Robb, member of the Meat Workers Union of Aotearoa in Auckland, New Zealand, contributed to this week's column.  
 
 
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