Democrats, cops, and courts gang up to end retail clerks' strike

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who did not return to work by July 18. actions of solidarity with striking unions On that day, the company declared that and punish all workers who stand up for it would begin hiring "permanent their rights. A strong defense of Tom Over 200 strikers massed to greet the the idea the bosses fear most-an injury scabs, who were primarily new-hires. to one is an injury to all.

SAN FRANCISCO—On August 19 the members of Department Store Employees Union Local 1100 in San Francisco voted three to one to accept the latest joint offer from Macy's and Emporium department stores and end their 44-day strike.

On July 7, under the slogan of "Not less, but more in '84" 2100 members of Local 1100 struck Macy's department store and two Macy's warehouses. Three days later Emporium-Capwell, displaying employer solidarity, locked out 1200 employees.

The new contract includes several takeaways and is a setback for Local 1100. The agreement includes a two-tier package that gives new employees timeand-a-half pay for Sunday and holiday work and no night premium pay. All other employees get double time for Sunday and holiday work and 10 percent extra for night premium pay.

The stores also introduced a three-hour shift for part-time workers. This will, in effect, deny health benefits to these employees because they don't work 80 hours per month. The new health plan is company-controlled and provides less coverage than the old plan. Also, employees will now have to pay as much as $30 per month for their health plan, whereas before they paid no more than $3 per month.

The wage increase is 40 cents for the first year and 30 cents for the second and third years. This amounts to only a 12 percent wage increase over three years for the average Local 1100 member. Without a cost-of-living clause, wages will not keep pace with inflation.

Despite large and spirited picket lines and several mass rallies, the members voted for the takeaway contract because of the misleadership of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (the parent union of Local 1100), Bay Area union leaders, and the Local 1100 elected officers.

During negotiations and throughout the strike, the international union played a treacherous role. They tried to get the members to accept the original two-tier offer and the wage package increase of 20 CHICAGO-Over 600 workers rallied in Cicero, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, on July 22 to express their solidarity with United Steelworkers Local 15271, which has been on strike since May 1 against the Danly Machine Corp. In the sweltering heat, the crowd heard USWA President Lynn Williams pledge, "When you fight the Steelworkers, you fight all of us."

Williams called on each USWA local in District 31 to pick a day every week to send picketers out to the Danly line. Other speakers included Jacqueline Vaughn, president of the Chicago Teachers Federation; author Studs Terkel; Rep. Charles Hayes (D-III.); Jack Parton, director of USWA District 31; and representatives from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the United Auto Workers.

The Danly Machine Corp. has demanded a series of far-ranging takebacks that include a two-tier wage structure that will pay new-hires as much as $5 an hour less than other employees. The company also proposes major job combinations, gutting all seniority rights, a three-year wage freeze, eliminating the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), and massive increases in employee pay-ins for health and pension premiums. The Danly workers voted.on April 30, by a 97 percent majority, to answer these demands by going on When the strike began, there were 425 working members of Local 15271.

Vinnie Longo was formerly employed at Danly Machine Co. and was a member of USWA Local 15271.

SOCIALIST ACTION There are also about 600 members who have been laid off over the last several years. The membership has held firm and successfully resisted company attempts at a divide-and-rule policy.

Danly Machine Corp. is one of the main producers of auto stamping presses in the United States. The Danly family had always been known for the paternalistic way in which they ran the plant. For instance, at Christmas every employee would be given a canned ham, a tin of manle svrun. and a box of pancake mix.

In 1982 the Danly family sold the company to the Ogden Corp., which is listed as 187th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest corporations in the United States. Ogden Corp. had sales of close to $2 billion last year. The president of Ogden Corp. pays himself a salary of $1 million a year.

Danly has hired the union-busting law firm of Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather and Geraldson, and the public relations outfit Hill and Knowlton in its efforts to crush the strikers. Off-duty Chicago cops have been hired to intimidate picketers. While wearing their badges and service revolvers they serve as "professional strikebreakers and hired gun thugs, according to Local 15271 President Joe Romano. The company has secured a court injunction to eliminate the mass picketing that naa • 1. -1 - - - 11-1 lad included as many as 400 people on occasion. Strikers have been harassed and arrested by Cicero cops throughout the Local 15271 has filed suit against the Chicago police and the city of Chicago, seeking to restrict the activities of the off-duty Chicago cops operating at the company's behest. The USWA has also hired the Camber Group, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm, to initiate a campaign against the Danly-Ogden conglomerate similar to the campaign against J.P. Stevens Co.

Danly threatened to fire all workers Socialist Action/Asher Harer cents, 15 cents, and 15 cents yearly over three years. The members would not go for this. After six days on strike, the international union reluctantly gave sanction to the strike. International union officers consistently fostered defeatism and pessimism among the members and to the press.

Local 1100's leadership, with Walter Johnson as president, has an outstanding record of solidarity with other unions on strike, but they didn't meet the test of the employers' challenge. Within the first week of the strike, Local 1100 was slapped with a prohibitive injunction, banning all picketing in front of the doors and banning all noisemakers except voices.

Johnson and other Bay Area union leaders organized a Labor Committee for the First Amendment to fight the injunction. But this committee remained replacements."

The union has also been organizing picketing of scabs' homes—letting people on the block know just what kind of neighbors they have.

Messages of support or be sent to USWA 15271, mie, Cicero, Il 60650.

By SHIRLEY PASHOLK TOLEDO, Ohio-On August 22, Tom Joseph, co-chairman of the Toledo Area Solidarity Committee and member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 50, was found guilty of aggravated battery.

Sentencing is expected in a few weeks.

Joseph faces a possible jail term of six to 18 months.

This conviction arises out of a May 21 rally by 3000 workers demonstrating support for the AP Parts strike in Toledo. When the police attacked, the workers defended themselves.

The Lucas County grand jury issued indictments against 37 workers on July 3, including 14 on felony charges. More trials are anticipated as the courts retaliate against the strong show of support that the strike has received.

Meanwhile, there is no progress in the strike. Scabs continue to work and the bargaining talks remain stalled.

Unfortunately, the UAW leadership has made no effort to reschedule the march they had called off when the company went back to negotiations.

The May 21 rally made a national impact as millions viewed the police attack on TV. The employers and their police and courts would like to outlaw other aid may 1617 S. Laraa paper comittee that never organized an effective defiance of the injunction or defense of the First Amendment. The rank and file were ready to do battle (there were 27 arrests during the strike) but ended up waiting for leadership that never came.

The Bay Area union leadership, grandiose speeches of solidarity notwithstanding, also failed to come to the aid of Local 1100. They did not mobilize their members to come to the picket line. Instead, they emphasized a Bay Area and national boycott that never got off the ground.

The misleadership of all these union leaders can be summarized in their policy of total reliance on the Democratic Party. These bureaucrats place their confidence in the Democratic Party officials like the anti-union Mayor Dianne Feinstein, rather than in the rank-and-file members of Local 1100. It was Mayor Feinstein who urged members to delay any strike action until after the Democratic convention.

The message the union misleaders give to the rank and file is "Don't fight now. You can't win while Reagan is president. You can't swim against the tide. We need a Democratic president."

That is their tailor-made excuse to do nothing!

Despite all of these problems, the strikers exerted a lot of pressure on Macy's and Emporium. The companies' August 19 proposal was noticeably better than the original offer of July 7 because of the overall strength of the picket lines.

Due to the fighting spirit of the Local 1100 rank and file, the two-tier plan was modified to the union's favor and the wage offer was doubled. The extra wages won on the picket line will mean more than $2100 extra for a full-time employee over the next three years.

More important, the members put up a fight that should serve them well when a new contract is negotiated in 1987. The bosses will remember the millions of dollars in sales they lost during the 44 days of the Scores of members have pledged themselves to be more active in the union because of the valuable lessons they have learned. If these lessons are absorbed by the whole union, the setback of 1984 could be turned into a victory in 1987.

Joseph and the other victims will raise return to work TOLEDO, Ohio.-Members of OCAW Local 7-912 ended their 20-week strike at the Sun Oil refinery here when they returned to work on August 11. Despite a favorable recommendation by their local officers, the strikers accepted the company's last offer by only a 30vote margin. The settlement enabled Sun Oil to effectively break the national oil industry wage pattern.

Although Sunoco workers will receive a lump sum payment equal to the national wage increase, the agreement allows the company to base pensions, overtime, and other benefits on the old hourly wage scale. New temporary hires will be paid $6 an hour, but after 90 days they will be paid the normal $10.07 an hour. The company was also able to obtain more flexibility in hiring maintenance personnel from outside the plant. This will reduce the number of jobs available for bidding by current employees.

Sun Oil backed down on most of the local work rule changes. Members of OCAW Local 7-912 feel they put up a good fight that prevented the company from imposing its original concessionary contract. They believe that their strike set an example of union solidarity. Boycott activities caused a real decline in Sunoco's business in the Toledo area. Strikers were upset, however, by the refusal of the international union to promote an active boycott in other parts of the country.—S.P.

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On the picket line Predicting after-tax profit gains in the second quarter of 25 to 30 percent higher than last year, corporations are confidently pressing for more concessions from American workers.

These increases have been bought and paid for by working people. Higher tariffs, import quotas, and lower corporation taxes have contributed to the corporate recovery, but labor contract concessions are the most important factor.

More goods and services are being produced with fewer, lower-paid workers. Speed-up, unemployment, benefit reductions, wage freezes, and the two-tier wage structure have fueled the economic upswing for the bosses. A serious deterioration in living and working conditions has accompanied this one-sided recovery for the rich. The latest figures indicate that an additional 6 million people have fallen below the government-calculated poverty level since 1980.

The American labor movement has failed to mobilize its full power against the employer attacks. Hoping for liberal Democrats to bail them out of the crisis, some labor leaders even argue that strike actions should be discouraged to avoid embarrassing Walter Mondale.

With stiff challenges facing American workers in September, it's hard to say how long the inherent power of the organized labor movement can be held back.

Mine workers...

MORGANTOWN, W. Va.—September 30 is the contract deadline for 160,000 active United Mine Workers (UMW) and the coal operators represented by the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA).

Miners struck during the last two contract negotiations when faced with serious takeaway demands. In fact, the UMW has engaged in national strike actions for a total of 207 days since 1974. Nonetheless, the operators have succeeded in imposing harsh discipline and working conditions upon a traditionally militant rank and file.

With one third of the UMW miners out of work, the operators are using the fear of layoffs to pressure miners to work faster, ignoring safety and other contract protections. Consequently, productivity has increased by 57 percent since 1978. This speed-up accounts for a statistically higher accident rate, despite the reduction in the number of working miners. A major rewrite of Federal Inspection laws has lowered many safety fines from $1000 to $20. There has been a complete failure of the government to enforce the Federal Mine and Safety Act.

New techniques in mining, like the Long Wall, are most profitably operated around the clock, seven days a week. To avoid possible damage from geological pressure, this machine has to keep running as it moves across a mine face 500 to 1000 feet wide.

Therefore, coal operators are pushing for a seven-day continuous production schedule. Miners are being asked to give up their free Sundays. Eliminating current restrictions on Saturday work is also being pushed.

The BCOA also wants to limit jobbidding rights even more severely than the last contract did. This will prevent new women and minority workers from gaining experience acquired by periodically shifting jobs. In addition, many miners use their bidding rights to rotate away from the more dangerous jobs.

Calling laid-off miners back to work in order to stockpile coal, the operators are hoping that a weekly paycheck after long months of unemployment will soften the militancy of the UMW members. But, in fact, the overtime and job openings have lifted morale. Miners seem determined to enforce their convention theme of "No Backward Step."

UMW President Trumka has kept to a minimum any discussion of the selective-strike strategy and the key bargaining objectives of the union in the belief that secrecy will give the union the upper hand in negotiations. However, some miners see this as hindering the involvement of the membership in strike preparations.

Like the British miners, the traditions and militancy of the UMW puts the miners in a good position to lead a large-scale fight against concessions.

KATE CURRY Auto workers...

CLEVELAND-On September 15, 450,000 Ford and General Motors production workers are hoping to regain some of the $3.5 billion in concessions extracted from them since the precedent-setting 1979 Chrysler agreement.

There are many signs of anger against concession-bargaining. Along with the July 23 United Auto Workers rally of 3000 people held in Detroit to launch the first session of negotiations, there was an unusually large protest vote against incumbents in the last elections. Even some militant local officials were dumped as the ranks sought ways to express their frustration.

The popular slogan "Restore and More in '84" symbolizes the basic sentiment of auto workers that enough is enough.

Unlike previous years; no one today believes that concessions are justified in VAR ON Socialist Action/Marc Rich U.A.W. striker at McDonnell Douglas in Los Angeles last February.

an industry that has registered record profits and a productivity increase of 25 percent. In the third year of a contract that offers no real wage gains, auto workers were infuriated to discover that GM paid out $180 million in executive bonuses. Ford wasn't far behind in this respect.

The fat bonuses and bulging profits make it difficult for the companies to reject a modest wage increase. Nonetheless, management plans to "contain labor costs per hour" by "expanding profit sharing" instead of annual wage and COLA (Cost-of-Living-Allo wance) raises.

The 1982 contract profit-sharing scam paid an average of $640 to GM workers and slightly more than $400 to Ford workers in exchange for $3000 given up in wages and benefits. Meanwhile, the industry is predicting that 70,000 jobs will be phased out in the next three years.

Unfortunately, top UAW leaders have accepted the projection of massive layoffs as inevitable. UAW President Owen Bieber has repeated the automakers' lies that wage gains threaten the health of the industry. His primary emphasis on negotiating larger pension plans signals an attempt to convince the companies to reduce the workforce through retirement and attrition rather than layoffs. It appears that the companies may actually agree to early retirement incentives in order to get rid of older workers.

With a record high strike fund and with the auto inventory well below its normal 60-day level, auto workers will be watching negotiations very closely. If the union leadership settles for an inferior contract, the deep dissatisfaction in the ranks may lead to the emergence of a powerful new movement against concessions. DEAN COHEN As we go to press, the Ford and GM bargaining councils have authorized UAW President Owen Bieber to call a strike against both companies unless the automakers back off their latest takeaway proposals. There are indications that UAW members are overwhelmingly in favor of an industry-wide shutdown if Ford and GM persist in their demands. The companies want to reduce health care benefits and institute a five-year delay in the normal 18-month pay progression for new hires.

Health workers...

NEW YORK-The 52,000 striking orderlies, technicians, and aides from 30 hospitals and 15 nursing homes in New York City on August 28 accepted by a 19,332-to-98 vote a new contract ending their 47-day old strike. Members of Local 1199 of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), AFL-CIO, conducted one of the largest and longest strikes of health care workérs ever in the United States.

The settlement provides a 5 percent wage increase in each year of a two-year contract. There are no benefit reductions as the hospitals demanded, but the union did concede a freeze in the starting minimum for new members in the second year of the contract. The contract guarantees employees every other weekend off.

Local 1199 members are predominantly Black, Latino, and women. Most were receiving wages below the poverty line when the union held its first strike 25 years ago. As a result of the union's struggles, salaries today range from $15,247 to $33,962.

Strikers used militant tactics to block scabs but they did not receive the broad labor support necessary to force the employers to back down. The police, courts, injunctions, and the National Labor Relations Board were used to demoralize the strikers and weaken the picket lines.

While the "friends-of-labor" politicians stood aside, Local 1199 members fought with a determination and militancy that should inspire the entire labor movement.

PETER CARLSSON Postal workers...

CHICAGO-The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), and two smaller unions, representing 600,000 workers, have been without a contract since July 20. Although the four postal unions and the U.S. Postal Service had begun negotiations for a new contract on April 24, the Postal Service had been completely intransigent at the bargaining table.

Management demands call for a 50 percent cut in sick leave, a wage-freeze, a cap on the Cost-of-Living Allowance (COLA), and a two-tier wage system SOCIALIST ACTION that would slash wages of new hires by 23 percent. Claiming that postal workers are overpaid, the Postal Service hopes to cut wages by up to $5000 a year.

The Postal Service has been operating in the black for the last two years, with a surplus of over $600 million in 1983.

The August conventions of the APWU and the NALC authorized strike action if the Postal Service refuses to accept the results of binding arbitration, or if there is another attempt to unilaterally implement the takeaway contract proposals. Congress recently prevented the Postal Service from imposing the two-tier system right in the middle of bargaining.

Hampered by the unconstitutional prohibition on their right to strike and conscious of the terrible defeat suffered by PATCO (air traffic controllers), both conventions in Las Vegas decided to submit the issues to binding arbitration. The two other options would have been to strike or accept the last management offer.

All four unions have fact-finding panels scheduled to give non-binding recommendations on September 13. The unions can then decide to resume bargaining during a 45-day period before arbitration would begin.

VINNIE LONGO Copper miners...

PHOENIX, Ariz.—A coalition of 13 unions led by the United SteelWorkers of America (USWA) struck PhelpsDodge Corp. on July 1, 1983, after the company refused to sign a pattern agreement negotiated with the rest of the copper industry.

Since that time, the huge corporation has used injunctions, state police, goons and scabs against the 1000 strikers. The miners have been threatened with eviction from company housing while the company doctor, Dr. Jorge O'Leary, was fired for providing health care to the union members.

Unable to completely break the year-long strike, 100 riot-equipped police attacked a strike anniversary rally held in Clifton, Ariz. The union received another blow the following day when the scab miners filed for a decertification election on July 1. Since only scabs will be allowed to vote, the union is protesting this phony election.

The will to fight among the miners and their wives, who remain on the picket lines, has not been matched with a commitment by the international union officials to mobilize the full strength of the 13 unions involved against the union busting of PhelpsDodge. J.S.

Teachers...

WASHINGTON, D.C.-The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) held its annual convention in Washington D.C. on August 20-24. Ex-AFT member Geraldine Ferraro spoke to the 3000 delegates, followed by a remote-control address by Walter Mondale that turned the 1984 convention into a cheering section for the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, none of the important issues facing teachers were brought to the attention of the delegates. One of only six unions to show a membership gain in the recent period, the AFT could be a powerful force capable of resisting the cutbacks in education.

While the membership did vote to boycott Contintental Airlines and New York Air, President Albert Shanker's conservative leadership kept tight control of the deliberations. Even the two progressive caucuses in the AFT failed to go beyond the "Support Mondale/ "Ferraro" theme that dominated the convention. NANCY ELNOR SEPTEMBER 1984

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Danley workers fight takebacks

DON'T SHOP MACYS

Toledo worker faces jail term

Sunoco strikers