The United Library Workers began discussing unionization last summer in hopes of gaining a voice when it comes to making decisions that affect the library, the people they serve and their own working environment.

“I am so excited for us to start this next chapter and look forward to working toward a contract that we deserve,” said Isabelle Toomey, a children’s librarian at the Downtown and Business branch. “And I am proud of my fellow coworkers for coming together and utilizing our right to organize.”

The Teamsters and SEIU currently represent the Carnegie Library’s drivers and environmental service workers. This new effort includes all 321 remaining eligible staff who will join a growing number of white-collar Steelworkers in Allegheny County.

#PittsburghPA #PeoplesStruggles #Steelworkers

U.S. Steel employees represented by United Steelworkers (USW) voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike authorization, Sept. 7. USW has been negotiating a master agreement with U.S. Steel that covers more than 16,000 workers around the country. The vote would grant the negotiating committee the power to call a strike against the company.

U.S. Steel is proposing a number of concessions, including cuts to workers’ take-home pay and jobsite safety standards. These cuts come after a projected yearly profit of $2 billion and more than $50 million in management bonuses since 2015. The contract, which expired on Sept. 1, has been extended and can be terminated with 48-hour notice.

The union is simultaneously negotiating a contract with ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel producer, based in Luxembourg. Proposed concessions from ArcelorMittal include cuts to wages and “safety nets” designed to help workers in the event of layoffs and plant closures. The master agreement represents approximately 8000 employees.

A strike against U.S. Steel would be the biggest steel strike since 1986. The steel strike of ‘86 lasted for six months.

#UnitedStates #Steelworkers #UnitedSteelworkersOfAmerica #Strikes

Lawyers from the International Labor Rights Fund and the United Steelworkers brought the case to U.S. courts under the rarely-used Alien Torte Claims Act of 1789 – originally meant to protect other countries against piracy – to expose Drummond’s involvement with the right-wing paramilitary (the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) and the U.S. government’s support for the corruption and violence against workers in Colombia.

The cards were stacked in Drummond’s favor from the start. The Bush-appointed Judge Bowdre threw out the wrongful death charge before the trial even began, which left the plaintiffs the difficult task of proving the murders constituted a war crime. Key witnesses who could have convinced the jury that Drummond was at fault were not allowed to testify. One of those witnesses, Rafael Garcia, saw Drummond’s top Colombian executive Augusto Jimenez hand over a briefcase containing $200,000 in cash to a well-known paramilitary member.

During the trial, other witnesses like Sintamienergética union treasurer Francisco Ruiz were flown in from Colombia and testified to Drummond’s lack of concern for its workers’ safety, as evidenced by the poor working and housing conditions in La Loma, as well as the company’s refusal to act when union leaders’ lives were repeatedly threatened. For instance, Drummond would not allow workers – who were in the middle of contract negotiations with the company and had been threatened by the paramilitary – to sleep in between shifts on company grounds for security. And this despite the fact that Colombia is notorious for being one of the most dangerous places in the world for trade unionist, hundreds of whom are murdered in Colombia each year.

However, it was more than simple negligence on the part of Drummond; even more damning was the fact that several witnesses, including retired army sergeant Edwin Manuel Guzmán and former security guard Isnardo Ropero González, say Drummond regularly paid the paramilitaries as well as allowed them free range at the mine.

Drummond claims the acquittal proves its innocence, and maintains that the company only pays the Colombian military for protection. However the facts of the case and the situation in Colombia as a whole suggest otherwise. Under the guise of a ‘war on drugs,’ the U.S. government has given billions of dollars under Plan Colombia to protect U.S. business interests, fund death squads, and quell peoples’ movements for social and economic justice.

“No one else but Drummond had an interest in murdering and terrorizing these trade union leaders,” said Jim Toweill of the Tuscaloosa chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). “Drummond benefits from the violence against Colombians – with an absence of strong unions, the company is free to exploit the workers for its own gain. Both the U.S. government and the Colombian government under Colombian President Uribe work to protect the interests of the multinationals and use paramilitary death squads to carry out their dirty work. That Drummond got off scot-free only proves that the U.S. courts are corrupt, and serve the interests of big business, not of justice.”

This is not the first incident where U.S. multinationals have been caught red handed working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Colombian paramilitary. In recent years, organizations like the Colombia Action Network have campaigned against Coca-Cola and Chiquita, who also face heat for their role in human rights abuses in their Colombian plants and for giving arranging and funding the murders of workers who were trying to improve working conditions. As news spreads about Drummond’s role in the murders, European power companies such as DONG of Denmark and Essent of the Netherlands have pledged to stop purchasing Drummond coal.

The trial did have some positive outcomes for working people. The case paved the way for other U.S. corporations operating in Latin America to be tried in U.S. courts and held accountable for their crimes against workers. While Drummond will not suffer from negative publicity like companies that depend heavily on name recognition, such as Chiquita and Coca-Cola, the trial was observed by people all over the world. Local activists and students were inspired to demand justice for Drummond workers and all Colombians who are under attack from the U.S. government and multinational corporations.

“We will continue this semester to take a stand against the actions of U.S. corporations and the U.S. government in Colombia, especially if the case is appealed,” said Toweill, who helped organize the picket against Drummond in July. “Drummond is not acting alone. They have the support of both the Colombian and U.S. government. The corporations are arranging assassinations; the U.S. is sending billions of dollars of aid to the corrupt Uribe administration under Plan Colombia. Our campaign against Drummond is also a campaign to end stop Plan Colombia and U.S. intervention in Latin America.”

#BirminghamAL #Labor #News #SDS #Colombia #WorkersAndGlobalization #Steelworkers #DrummondCo #ValmoreLocarno #VictorOrcasita #InternationalLaborRightsFund #Americas

Hamilton, AL – “This is a fight to the death. We will not let the scabs have this plant. If we can't have it, we will shut it down,” vowed the local United Steel Workers of America membership.

Steelworkers on strike at Speedrack Products Group Ltd. since January 31, continue a battle that will last “one day longer” than the company's resolve. Many of the members are accustomed to long-term fights, some have participated in previous strikes at other workplaces and a good number have been fighting for a union at Speedrack for nine years.

Since 1991, the Alabama company's practice of using work release prisoners has increased so that they make up about half of the workforce. The union won recognition in September of 1999 after the U.S. Court of Appeals determined that the ballots of work release prisoners at Speedrack must be counted. Now the members are demanding a fair contract.

When the only other union in town, the United Auto Workers, came out in support of the approximately 100 steelworkers, local police tried to prevent their demonstration. The police cited the injunction against the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) as reason to stop the UAW protest, although local police did not even have jurisdiction in injunction enforcement.

Marion County's Judge Aderholt, a Republican who owns his own plant in the vicinity and is the father of Congressman Robert Aderholt, handed down the injunction against the steelworkers. It severely limits their picketing and allows only five USWA members to demonstrate at two locations in view of the plant. It keeps the union 30 feet from the gate. It prevents picketing on public roads immediately surrounding the company and even restrains them to no closer than five feet to the opposite side of the road.

Even with the county's 9.5% unemployment rate and the inability of the work release prisoners to participate in the picket prior to the injunction, the strikers had successfully stopped production.

The mayor and police chief provide Speedrack with full time police service. Strikers have been accused of, and arrested for foul language. Meanwhile, as the cops sat at the company, scabs threw bombs at the strikers. A member's truck was burnt in his driveway. Another scab, wielding a lead pipe, beat a member on picket duty, who was videotaping those crossing the line. Police classified the bombings as “littering” and insisted that the beating had been provoked.

In a meeting with federal mediation, Speedrack stood on its final offer, removing the eight-hour day as standard, changing employee status to part-time for 36 hours or less, removing heath care benefits and lowering the average wage below $7.75. They intend for employees to remain off work for one week without pay during the holiday season, to pay for uniforms, and to purchase their own tools.

Recently, the mediator indicated that the company was willing to meet a second time and the negotiation committee made the nearly 100-mile trip to Birmingham again. Speedrack's only object at the meeting appeared to be an opportunity for manager Tom Whitaker and company attorney Ron Passarrelli, of the firm Wessels and Pautsch, to express pleasure with their new scab workforce.

Back in Hamilton, strikers maintain the picket 24 hours a day and are stubbornly digging in for this hard fight for their first contract. Recently, they have erected a permanent structure at the site and raised the American flag. They appreciated their previous strike headquarters, maintained out of generosity at the local UAW hall, but they have found office space in the center of town, across from the Marion County courthouse. The Steelworkers have formed a citizen's coalition to elect new city government officials and are looking forward to the summer elections.

#HamiltonAL #Hamilton #News #Speedrack #Steelworkers #SouthernLaborMovement