USX and S. Korea try to bust construction unions
1987 1987-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1987 5 On Aug. 7, 1987, approximately 200 building trades workers participated in a noon rally in downtown San Francisco. They were protesting the non-union, $30million modernization project of the USX steel plant in Pittsburg, Calif. The demonstration was called by the rank-and-file committee against the two-gate.
The two gate-system is a method by which the solidarity of the building trades unions is broken down by having different trades cross different picket lines on different job sites. Two gates—a union gate and a non-union gate are set up on job sites. During a labor dispute, the affected union is only allowed by law to picket the non-union gate.
The union is thus prevented from completely shutting down the job site because other unions enter through the unpicketed union gate. When other unions do respect a picketline by not going through the union gate, the Taft-Hartley law is invoked against them.
No organization of the ranks The new, modernized plant will be run by USS-Posco, a joint venture of US and Pohang Steel of South Korea. USX shut down its basic steel plant in Geneva, Utah, laying off 3000 workers. When the project is completed, Pohang will send 1 million tons of semi-finished steel annually to USX in Pittsburg.
BE&K, a non-union Alabama contractor, has been hired by USS-Posco to modernize the plant.
The response of the building trades' unions has been to ask for a project agreement. Project agreements are the new ploy by the building trades' unions. Instead of organizing workers or signing up contractors, they now seek to organize on a job-to-job basis.
These project agreements more often than not undermine the contracts that unions have in the area. From the point of view of "business unionism," they pick up initiation fees and hourly dues from non-union workers at the expense of the wages from their regular dues-paying membership.
While the demonstration expressed solidarity amongst the trades, the carpenters' union officials are trying to cut their own special deal behind the scenes.
Without an approach to unite all workers in a concerted fight, whether in the building trades or the steelworkers' union, the best that can happen will be union-sanctioned wage cuts at the USX plant. This will further set the stage for breaking the building trades' unions.
For example, in Buckport, Maine, non-union BE&K was removed from a job at the Champion Paper Co. through joint action by the building trades and the paperworkers unions.
Coordinated and militant actions like this will be the only way to upset the plans of the employers for breaking the building trades unions in Pittsburg, Calif. Brookiyn, NY 11240-4830 IMPACT Post Office Box 404830 2-966-9619 ISUALS Affordable photos, cartoons, caricatures and illustrations for the movement and the progressive press