Labor Briefing

Scan page 3

SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 2017 3 Movers Become Shakers In D.C.—The motto of Amalgamated Transit Union Lo­ cal 689 is We Move This City. Their 9000 members keep the second biggest (in mileage) subway system in the USA run­ ning—as best they can with the Metro’s austerity budget—in addition to dozens of usually standing-room-only bus lines and paratransit services. Their contract with the Washington Metro Area Trans­ portation Authority expired last June.

Local President Jackie Jeter told WAMU radio that WMATA wants $100 million in take-aways. Included is a wage freeze and denial of pension benefits to new work­ ers, who would be put into the equivalent of 401(k) accounts—with no guaranteed retirement income.

These attacks are nearly identical to those by the Chicago Transit Authority on ATU train and bus locals. In both cit­ ies workers have been refusing overtime and working to rule, and there have been selective “sick-outs.” Even more impor­ tantly, they have been building solidarity among their riders and with other unions and environmental groups. These allies show up to all the public meetings of the transit boss boards and join in frequent ATU demonstrations.

The unions hope that pressure will force the employers to agree to an accept­ able contract without a strike that would cause hardship for their passengers, who have been supportive.

Repatriating Jobs—Last year, after a strike involving 40,000 workers, the Com­ munications Workers of America was able to restore thousands of outsourced and offshored jobs to the bargaining unit and to establish a new beachhead in the growing wireless market.

Currently, CWA is involved in tough ne­ gotiations with dozens of units of AT&T— remnants of the original breakup of the old Ma Bell monopoly. About 10 years ago, CWA got a big boost when the carrier acquired unionized Cingular to be the base of today’s ATT Mobility—the second largest cell phone network.

But since 2011, ATT has offshored 8000 call center jobs to the Dominican Repub­ lic, Mexico, and the Philippines. The union is demanding that those jobs be restored. After a one-day strike purportedly over grievances, the union won a contract settlement covering landline and internet workers in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas that provides annu­ al wage increases, a $1000 signing bonus, and two-weeks paid parental leave. And a big breakthrough was achieved when that company unit agreed to hire 3000 union workers for positions currently offshored.

However, other units employing 21,000 union workers in 36 states have yet to budge. At this paper’s deadline, the union has served notice that they may walk out at any time.

They Took On the Challenge—After a three week strike, newly organized UAW workers won a first contract at Challenge Manufacturing’s Kansas City plant. Lured by generous tax incentives, Challenge opened the plant in 2015 to supply parts to the General Motors Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas. The new contract meets industry standards for outsourced parts production—but is con­ siderably less than what Big Three UAW members enjoy.

Grounds For Celebration at Philly IA—Last month 1400 baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, SkyCaps, and oth­ er passenger service workers employed by contractors at Philadelphia Interna­ tional Airport voted overwhelmingly to be represented by Service Employees International Union 32BJ. It took four years of demonstrations, informational picketing, and job actions to get this La­ bor Board election. The various employ­ ers hired by the mostly unionized airlines also agreed to be bound by Philadelphia’s “living wage” requirement for contractors on public facilities. That’s currently $12 an hour—hardly a princely sum. But it means more than a $4 an hour raise for most of these workers—a start to build on.

Preempted Poor—The Fight for 15 and a Union campaign, which includes airport service workers, home care aides, contin­ gent college faculty as well as fast food workers, has also been involved in suc­ cessful struggles to win higher state and city minimum wage laws. But the bosses and their kept politicians are now using state legislatures to suppress this move­ ment through what has been dubbed “preemption.” This refers to legislation, or amendments to state constitutions, pro­ hibiting local governments from setting minimum wage rates higher than those of the state—in many cases no more than the federal minimum—currently a pov­ erty level $7.25.

Because this affects workers of color most of all, many civil rights groups— above all the NAACP—are joining with unions to fight preemption through dem­ onstrations and civil disobedience. This was a feature of May Day strikes and pro­ tests in North Carolina, Minnesota, and Kansas City It should also be a reminder that the win these most basic struggles.

Deserving Honors—On May Day, ABC news reported: “Eight graduate student teachers at Yale University have been on hunger strike since last Tuesday in an ef­ fort to push a collective bargaining agree­ ment with the university forward. The protesters, including four men and four women who are part of the new Local 33-Unite Here union, say that their fast is indefinite or until the school’s admin­ istration agrees to discuss an agreement with the eight departments that joined the union. They say they have only con­ sumed water.” n Thanks to Mike Elk and Michael Schreiber for contributions to this month’s Briefing. If you have a story suitable for this feature please contact [email protected].

Don’t miss the four panels sponsored by Socialist Action Newspaper • The Russian Revolution:

Its Meaning for Today • The March 8 International Women’s Day Strike Changed Class Politics • Can the Democratic Party Be Reformed?

• South Africa Today:

Confronting Neo-liberalism The Left Forum will take place on the June 2-4 weekend at the John Jay Law Center in Manhattan. See www.

leftforum.org for schedule and how to register.

Scan page 4

Marty Goodman / Socialist Action “criminals” are being deported; a quarter of the peo­ ple swept up in ICE raids since Trump took office had never been charged with a crime.

The largest May Day events appear to have taken place in Los Angeles, where several marches took place. In the largest action, a show of “unity, resis­ tance, and defiance,” over 120 organizations spon­ sored a downtown march, from MacArthur Park to City Hall, with rallies at both ends.

The Los Angeles turnout of 20,000 to 30,000 was much larger than on May Day 2016, although it was less than the 100,000 that had been widely predicted for this year. Some organizers had even expressed con­ fidence that the size of the crowd would approach or exceed that of the historic May Day 2006 event, when close to half a million marched down Wilshire Blvd. as part of a vast national mobilization in response to the reactionary anti-immigrant bill that had been in­ troduced by James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) in the U.S. Senate. But in 2017, the fact that the immigrant com­ munity in Los Angeles has been hard hit by raids (two months earlier, ICE detained about 160 people) prob­ ably contributed to the smaller than expected number of participants.

New York also saw several marches. Early in the day, 500 protesters marched through Midtown Manhat­ tan and rallied in front of offices of Wells Fargo and

----- pull-quotes -----

Going to the Left Forum?