Contract falls short for Gemco workers

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By DAVE ROBERTS and ARIEL MARCUS LOS ANGELES-Gemco workers, on strike for three months in the Southern California area, have won a new contract following an unsuccessful attempt by the giant company to break the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

While not all details of the settlement are available, it is known that employees of future Gemco stores (three are presently planned) will not have the right to a union contract. They will have to go through an organizing drive and a new representation election.

The new stores will have centralized checking. This means that both food and merchandise will be checked by the same clerks. Gemco had demanded that centralized checkers receive the lower rate of merchandise checkers. This issue has now been put off for arbitration until October 1985.

Health and welfare payments will be maintained, but a new, separate fund will be established for Gemco employees. A two-tier system of wages has been established, with new employees starting at a lower rate of pay.

With proper organization, and especially with holiday sales at their peak, the strike could have been over in a much shorter time-with a considerably better result.

The UFCW leadership did not prepare their membership in Gemco and their other 60,000 local members for a militant strike. Most of the retail clerks knew little of what Gemco workers were facing. No attempt was made to bring the full force of their large membership to bear on the strike.

The Labor Alliance Against Concessions, meeting with leaders of the UFCW early in the strike, proposed that the union (1) mobilize the members working at Gemco; (2) mobilize support within the locals representing the other LEMBER Socialist Action/Joe Ryan bad. January is a crucial month for them and for us."

As the Danly strike continues one steelworker official was quoted as saying, "This is another Phelps Dodge in the making."

He was referring to the 17-month-old strike by 1700 copper miners in Arizona-many of whom are in the USWA-against the country's second largest copper producer.

This summer, in both the Danly and 60,000 retail clerks; and (3) mobilize support in the labor movement with the help of the Labor Alliance.

Although the union leadership did Carol*Simpsons not respond to the offer of support by the Labor Alliance, Alliance members organized several support picket lines. But the most successful attempt at mobilizing the labor movement took place when the Harbor Coalition (made up of the Longshoremen's Union, the Shipbuilders, UAW locals, and other unions) decided to defy an injunction obtained by the store management. The injunction was so inclusive that any person joining the picket line was subject to arrest.

About 200 unionists from various unions showed up, and no arrests took place. This was the highlight of the strike. Such actions point the way toward mass labor solidarity in order to answer the attacks against working people by large conglomerates like Gemco.

Phelps Dodge strikes, the unions received publicity for instituting "corporate campaigns."

Tactics in the Danly strike have ranged from threatening to have Chicago unions withdraw their funds from banks that own shares in Ogden, to leafleting at universities, law firms, and banks with which Ogden's board of directors are associated.

But many workers on the picket lines at both Danly and Phelps Dodge have argued that the union's corporate campaign is a weak substitute for more decisive action. Dr. Jorge O'Leary, a company doctor who was fired by Phelps Dodge, advocated in an open letter to the USWA that mass picketing be used to shut down the copper industry. He has also advocated the formation of a union-financed political party and an emergency session of the AFL-CIO to set the date for a general strike.

At Danly, the political support enjoyed by the company has been driven home to all the strikers. Besides the jail sentence of their president, the strikers have seen their fellow pickets arrested for cursing. In one incident a scab attacked a striker as a Cicero policeman watched. The police then refused to let the striker file charges.

In cases like these, "the courts side with the bosses, a union lawyer told the members. As Vice President Kaster said, "In Arizona it was a Democratic governor who called out the state police against the Phelps Dodge strikers. Labor needs to establish our own party, not support somebody else's."

Messages of solidarity and contributions may be sent to USWA 15271, 1617 S. Laramie, Cicero, IL 60650.

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UNLONBUStERS Going soot a locat near you!