http://themilitant.com/2016/8012/801232.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 12 March 28, 2016
—ON THE PICKET LINE—
Maggie Trowe, Editor
Militant/Jacob Perasso
Teamster airline mechanics and supporters protest United Airlines
concession contract demands outside J.P. Morgan-sponsored conference of
airline bosses March 8 in New York.
Help the Militant cover labor struggles across
the country!
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resistance that is unfolding today. It seeks to give voice to those
engaged in battle and help build solidarity. Its success depends on
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work together to ensure your story is told.
— Maggie Trowe
Teamster airline mechanics picket United at aviation event
NEW YORK — Chanting “No contract, no flights!” and “What’ll we do?
Strike!” more than 100 mechanics and other members of Teamsters Airline
Division picketed March 8 in Midtown Manhattan outside the Aviation,
Transportation and Industrials Conference hosted by J.P. Morgan
investment bank.
Members of Local 210, who work at the three major airports here, were
joined by mechanics who flew in from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver,
Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and Houston.
“We are not rolling in cash,” said 29-year mechanic Vincent LoBiondo,
who works at Newark Liberty International Airport. “We are just trying
to make a living. The airlines are very profitable right now.” Seven
years ago mechanics agreed to big pay cuts — some $500 per person per
month — LoBiondo said, to keep the airline profitable. Now they have
worked three years without a contract and without a raise.
The unionists are demanding a defined pension, which was replaced by a
401(k) plan during United’s 2002 bankruptcy. They oppose the company’s
demand for wage and benefit cuts for new hires, higher medical payments
and the option to contract out more work.
“One way or another we have to get it back to how it was before,” said
Lino Hernández, a Newark mechanic with 30 years’ experience. “So we have
to show the power of the workers. If we have to strike, we will.”
— Jacob Perasso
New Zealand meat workers protest union-busting layoff
RANGIURU, New Zealand — Meat giant AFFCO laid off 214 meat workers here
March 4 in its latest anti-union move. Four days later members of the
Meat Workers Union picketed outside the plant.
AFFCO disregarded seniority in the layoff. “This is a form of union
busting,” union shed secretary Bertie Ratu told the Militant. “Union
workers with 45 years’ experience are out of a job while staff on
individual contracts with 45 days on the job are still working.” It is
not the fault of the newer workers, she said. “A lot of them want to
join the union, but we don’t have a contract to offer them.”
AFFCO has been imposing “Individual Employment Agreements” on union
members at eight plants, rather than renegotiating the expired union
contract. In November workers won a round in this battle when the
Employment Court ruled AFFCO must abide by the union contract for those
covered by it. In February the court confirmed this included seniority
provisions, ending a five-month lockout of unionists at the Wairoa plant.
The company fired Ratu and delegate Charmaine Takai last year for union
activities, but a court had just ordered them reinstated. Both had been
working for less than a week.
“Told by court reinstate! 4 days later out the gate! Talley’s SHAME ON
YOU!!!” read Takai’s placard. Talley’s is AFFCO’s parent company.
Workers at the 30-strong picket gave examples of the company’s disregard
for safety. An inexperienced young German on a working holiday visa was
injured Jan. 15 after being caught in a machine and knocked unconscious.
Two years ago a machine hook impaled a cleaner’s head and carried him
along a moving chain in the same area. A court just ruled that accident
was a result of AFFCO’s violation of health and safety laws. Government
statistics report 1,286 Talley’s workers were injured on the job in 2014.
The picket took place the day the company in this rural area invites its
farmer suppliers to tour the plant. Workers called out to the farmers,
“We’re your neighbors. Our kids go to school together. Would you want
your kids to work under these conditions?”
“I’ve been in the union since day one. Otherwise you get treated like
dirt, like nobody,” Iria Taite, a laid-off butcher with 11 years at the
plant, told the Militant.
— Janet Roth
Teamster rail worker wins reinstatement in Alberta
CALGARY, Alberta — Teamsters union member Stephanie Katelnikoff, 26, was
reinstated with back pay and benefits at Canadian Pacific Railway a year
after she was fired. The company assigned her to work as a conductor
less than five months into what is normally a six-month training period.
On her second run, the train carrying grains and toxic fly ash, used to
make concrete, derailed in Banff National Park Dec. 26, 2014.
Katelnikoff filed a union grievance after she was fired the following
month. Arbitrator Maureen Flynn ruled that “the grounds cited for Ms.
Katelnikoff’s dismissal are factually inaccurate and unfounded.”
Canadian Pacific reported it fired her in part because she didn’t
immediately report pulmonary problems resulting from inhaling fly ash
dust after the derailment. Those allegations, Flynn wrote, “appear to be
a camouflage of the Company’s actual reasons that are discriminatory and
in bad faith.” The investigation revealed that a sexual harassment
complaint Katelnikoff filed against a co-worker was a factor in the firing.
As she prepared to return to work, Katelnikoff briefly posted an open
letter to Canadian Pacific CEO Hunter Harrison on YouTube demanding the
railroad respect human rights and cease putting profits before safety
and workers’ rights. “Hundreds of railroaders from all over North
America sent me messages” of support, Katelnikoff told the Militant
March 1.
Katelnikoff has requested the railroad complete her training before she
is sent out again.
Train derailments and collisions are common here. On Feb. 18, 14
Canadian Pacific cars derailed in Inglewood, a Calgary neighborhood near
the Alyth rail yard. Two CP tank cars full of propane collided Jan. 31
near Edmonton while being operated by a worker wearing a remote control
“beltpack,” a technology whose use the company is expanding, CBC reported.
— Katy LeRougetel
Los Angeles port truck drivers strike at XPO Logistics, Pac 9
LOS ANGELES — Striking port truck drivers at XPO Logistics picketed
their terminal in Commerce Feb. 29, protesting a new contract imposed on
them by the company.
“XPO Logistics has us against the wall,” driver Humberto Canales said on
the port truckers’ Facebook page. “They are forcing us to sign a
contract that prevents us from defending ourselves in the future in the
courts. But if we don’t sign it, XPO could use that as an excuse to lay
us off. … This is retaliation. It is harassment.”
Drivers at Pacific 9 Transportation also picketed their terminal the
same day to protest the company stalling on payment of millions of
dollars in penalties for wage theft after the California Labor
Commissioner ruled Dec. 14 that they should be classified as employees,
not independent contractors.
— Bill Arth
Related articles:
New revelations point to bosses, gov’t responsibility for Quebec rail
disaster
ATI workers return to work with heads high after lockout
Fla. farmworkers demand pay increase from Wendy’s
Rail unionists to vote on new NJ Transit contract
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