World Socialist Web Site notes labor disputes in the Americas

One of the things Socialists, Communists, and assorted revolutionaries are very good for is to keep track of ongoing labor disputes. The strike is one of the core tools of the workers' revolution, so it follows that certain people on the left should have a great interest in these labor disputes.

The quick recap shows the following:

- Brazilian petroleum workers held a 24-hour warning strike on September 10 to demand better wages. Workers demand a 22.3% raise from state-owned Petrobras in response to inflation, and a 6.8% raise in response to increased production. Petrobras has offered a 6% raise.

- Mexican health workers are have filed a suit against former Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo as part of a campaign to expose political oppression of the former administration. Portillo is reported to claim ignorance of the kidnappings, rapes, executions, and so forth, that allegedly took place on his watch. "I was a president," he declared. "Not a policeman."

- Brazilian postal workers struck on September 12, and the strike has spread. Wages seem to be the issue, as striking sorters and carriers demand a 70% increase in base pay, parity with operating technicians, and higher meal vouchers. At present, the equivalent US$136 earned by carriers reflects a 1980s base pay that was at the time equivalent of five times the minimum wage, while today it is merely equivalent to the minimum wage. Postal management has countered the strike by warning that excessive demands could lead to the privatization of the system.

- American workers at Yale University find themselves entrenched in an ugly strike. A September 13 rally supporting Yale's 4,000 striking employees reportedly drew a crowd of 10,000. A small sit-in at the middle of the campus resulted in 148 arrests. Race politics have tainted the scabbing issue. Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple cancelled an appearance at the university, refusing to cross the strike line. Wages, job security, and pension benefits appear to be the issues of this strike conducted by HERIU Locals #34 and #35.

- American professors at Long Island University ended their strike on September 11 after the union accepted a tentative contract offering minor salary increases over three years and a reduction of workload. Unresolved at LIU, however, are seniority and health benefit issues for adjunct faculty.

- Undocumented workers from India are charging that now-defunct Oklahoma manufacturer John Pickle Company, of Tulsa, with "human trafficking for labor". The workers claim they were promised US wages and would be provided with apartments. They were instead housed in dormitories, allowed to leave the premises only under escort, and were paid $2 to $3 per hour, working as "trainees". Attorneys for the workers seek to establish that they were not, in fact, trainees, but full-time employees. An article from the February, 2003 Oklahoma Employment Law Letter reports that the EEOC filed suit against JPC in February, alleging that the employer violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the allegations include racial and ethnic harassment, discriminatory pay, and unsafe working conditions. OSHA has previously fined JPC for safety violations at its Tulsa operations, including unsafe forklift and ladder conditions, insufficient safety precautions for flammable liquids, and inappropriate protection against injury for its workers. Attorneys say the situation was unknown until some of the employees were able to leave the work site and seek help from local religious groups.

- Union negotiators in Philadelphia reached a tentative agreement in a teachers' strike against the local Catholic Archdiocese. Common issues--wages, benefits, seniority--seem to have been at stake.

- Teamsters Local #519 honored a picket line for locked-out bakery workers at White Lily Foods in Knoxville, Tennessee. The support seems much needed for the 68 members of BCTW/GM Local #165 who have been on the line since July 24, when contract negotiations broke down. White Lily has apparently offered a $0.25 hourly-wage increase while hoping to increase the employee's share of the healthcare costs from 10 to 20%. Local #156 President David Woods has been arrested and charged with criminal trespass, and is alleged to have threatened to shoot a security guard. Woods, of course, denies the charge.

- U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R), of Colorado proposed legislation that would repeal the Dais-Bacon Act of 1931, calling for "market" wages instead of the longstanding prevailing wage protection.

- Canadian grocery workers in British Columbia are preparing to strike agaisnt 49 Safeway grocery stores in the province. The workers, represented by UFCW, voted 98% in favor of strike action last April after rejecting a contract offer for concerns over wage disparities and benefit provisions.

- Canadian mushroom producers took a hit from the Ontario Labour Relations Board, which seeks to count ballots from low-wage workers at Rol-Land farms in the southern part of the province. 270 low-wage workers from Kingsville applied for certification from UFCW last June. The Union voted earlier this year, and the vote count has been delayed by legal maneuvering, and the union hopes the case will set a precedent for agricultural workers; current laws disallow farm workers the right to unionize.

All in all, I have to say it's a pretty good week when these are the issues of note. Best wishes, of course, to the efforts in Brazil; gracious thanks to Alice Walker; much hope for justice in Oklahoma, and please don't go thinking JPC is an extremely rare exception. While most businesses in this country recognize the need to treat workers at least decently (I'd prefer fairly), I think most Americans would be truly disturbed to learn how much of their world is manufactured under conditions they would find morally or ethically inappropriate.

Even the Brazilian postal issue brings an aura of "they do well enough" to labor disputes insofar as it's a better shot than earning wages in, say, Uganda.

I don't know ... it's just an update, I suppose. Anyone is welcome to find an issue who really wants to. My two cents for labor.

Stand proud, hold the line. Without the labor, management has nothing to sell.

Notes:

- Report, Staff. "Workers Struggles: The Americas." World Socialist Web Site. September 16, 2003. see http://wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/lab-s16.shtml
- Plumb, Charles. "EEOC sues Tulsa employer on behalf of workers from India." Oklahoma Employment Law Letter. February, 2003. see http://fpmail.friends-partners.org/pipermail/stop-traffic/2003/002932.html
- Report, Wire. "Authorities Investigate Factory for 'Virtual Slaves'." IMdiversity.com Undated. see http://www.imdiversity.com/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=9250

P.S. Can you tell I the Pickle story was at the center of my motivations for this topic?

Unions are very important, no doubt. But in today's world of globalization the idea of being paid more and more is getting more and more dangerous. Sure they can strike but if a company feels that it can give those jobs to a China, India, or Vietnam, they will go and leave the workers behind worse off then before... then what? Now most but not all of those jobs are stationary ones, i.e supermarket, and nurses, etc. But strikes for exportable jobs are more dangerous then ever. :cool: [/i]Workers of the world unite[i] for lower real wages. :(

http://www.laweekly.com/images/ink/03/44/sm44news2.jpg

stupid fuck goes on to plunge a knife into his heart

Still, it wasn’t hard to grasp the meeting’s big theme, a bitter game of hardball between the haves and have-nots. The rich nations (led, for once, by the European Union and not the U.S.) were fervently pushing proposals designed to open up poorer countries to greater foreign investment and de facto control — for instance, letting multinational corporations buy their banks or public utilities. In response, the so-called Group of 21, a bunch of less-developed countries headed by Brazil, India and China, decided they weren’t about to discuss anything new until Europe and the U.S. hacked away at the enormous agricultural subsidies and tariffs that serve to impoverish much of the Third World.

You could understand why the G-21 nations felt this way. There are 2 billion poor people in the world, and three-quarters of them live in communities that depend on agriculture. Yet even as their farmers are told that they should enter the “free” market, they’re competing with farmers in the developed world who receive $300 billion a year in subsidies — six times the amount those same countries spend on foreign aid. To put the issue simply, the average European cow is subsidized to the tune of $2 a day, more than the daily income of millions of Third World farmers. The suicide of Lee Kyung Hae wasn’t the random act of a disturbed man. He was embodying the anger and frustration of legions of Korean farmers who have found their whole way of life undercut by an onslaught of rice imported from subsidizing countries like the U.S

Welcome to the Concrete Jungle (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/44/news-powers.php)

The primary beneficiary of free trade are international corporations and their owners.

First world countries, such as the US, have their jobs shipped overseas to be filled by cheap foreign labor.

Third world countries suffer slave labor conditions, environmental destruction and a loss of national economic self sufficiency. Third world countries are going though their own phase of Robber Barons.

However all economic, political and corporate leadership believes in Free Trade. It seems to work for them.

Globalization = pseudo-socialism.

The weird thing about Free trade is that the world is only as strong as it's weakest linkage. So American jobs are far to expensive, compared to a China or India. China's work costs are rising as well that will eventually make China less competitive. It's all to the LCD (lower common denominator ). Of course Corporations love this beause they will profit like mad. But of course this will destroy the capitalist economy, because we are already seeing 1st world nations go into deflation, and then what money will there be to be spent? Then also the nation=state will cease to exist, it will become a corporatist world, and huge "trade blocs" so there seems to be a assembelance of governance.

Here are some interesting books on free trade and capitalism which have helped me understand what is going on today.

When Corporations rule the World by David Korten

One Market under God by Thomas Frank

World on Fire by Amy Chau

The Bigness Complex by Walter Adams and James Brock

International corporations are on a rampage right now. Technology improvements, political and regulatory changes over the last 20 years as allowed international capital to break out of the constraints of national values and is now in a single minded pursuit of a sinlge value-profit. Other values of societies beyond profit are losing.

So does capitalism exist for society or society exist for capitalism? At this point in history, it seems society exists for capitalism. When the pain is great enough, perhaps we will see the error in our ways. I think the US will realize it over the next 10 years or so. It may be too late by then.