NIGERIA
Resident Doctors Still On Strike Due To Lack Of Trust – NMA
Channels Television
Updated August 23, 2021

A deep distrust of the Federal Government’s ability to implement its promises is behind the prolonged strike of resident doctors across the country, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) said on Monday.

“The problem we face is that when agreements are signed, everybody goes to sleep,” NMA President, Innocent Ujah, said during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

“So there is this distrust among workers. And this is not good for the country; because we expect that those who work for our President should be truthful, honest and should comply with the agreement.”

There were indications that the three-week-old strike would soon be called off after the doctors, under the aegis of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) met with Federal Government representatives in Abuja over the weekend.

The meeting was brokered, in part by the NMA, which is the parent body of all doctors in the country.

But the resident doctors refused to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) produced at the end of the meeting, citing the government’s decision to institute a court action over the strike.

The resident doctors also said the government must reverse its ‘no work, no pay’ policy.
‘Impoverished’ Doctors

Meanwhile, a NARD spokesperson, Julian Ojebo, has said the resident doctors will not resume unless their benefits have been paid.

Ojebo, while speaking on Sunrise Daily, said resident doctors have been left ‘impoverished’ by the government’s inability to meet its demands.

“We are not on strike for added allowances; we are not on strike for any other thing,” Ojebo said. “We are on strike for our normal due salaries that you have not paid from January to July.




“We are talking about salary shortfalls that you have not paid from 2014 to 2016. We are talking about monies you have not paid for our medical residency training program. These are the issues on the table, and these issues have not been resolved.”

He noted that signing MoUs was an academic exercise that does nothing to address the doctors’ demands.

“Payment of our benefits are the only actionable plans that can actually make us sign any memorandum of agreement of terms,” he said.

“Other than these, I don’t think we are being fair.”

A recurring problem

The resident doctors had earlier embarked on a strike in April.

The strike was suspended within ten days after the doctors met with Federal Government representatives and an agreement was signed for implementation.

But nothing was done to implement the agreement, NARD has said, prompting the resumption of the strike action.

“Twenty-one days of strike action in this country is unacceptable,” the NMA chief Ujah said on Monday. “But the problem is that some people are not doing their work.

A photo combination, created on August 23, of President of the Nigeria Medical Association, Innocent Ujah and Chairman, Communication and Communique, at the National Association of Resident Doctors, Julian Ojebo.


“This strike is avoidable. In April, we were able to convince our colleagues to suspend the action, and nothing happened anymore.

“They gave a period of notice to government, again nothing happened.

“The issue is about distrust. So government has to implement at least some of the demands.

“If the government does its own bit, there is no reason why resident doctors should not go back to work. They are not happy that when issues are raised, implementation becomes a problem.”

Resident Doctors Still On Strike Due To Lack Of Trust – NMA – Channels Television (channelstv.com)

 GERMANY

Lack of emergency service rule - court prohibits nursing staff strike

In Berlin's state-owned hospitals, the Charité and the Vivantes hospitals, the week starts with an industrial action by the nursing staff. They demand, after the applause in the pandemic, a collective agreement on better staffing ratios. The strikers want to protest in front of the Vivantes headquarters in Reinickendorf. Afterwards it is to go in a demonstration at noon to the Charité-Virchow-Campus in Wedding.

According to information from the Daily Mirror, the Vivantes board has obtained a temporary injunction prohibiting the strike by the nursing staff. The reason given by the labor court was the lack of an emergency service agreement. Formally, the court's decision applies only to Vivantes.The Senate is now exerting pressure on the board of the state-owned hospital chain to sign a corresponding emergency service rule with Verdi. Then the strike could probably continue until Wednesday, as the union has announced.

On which wards are nursing staff on strike - and what is the impact?

On Monday, employees at Vivantes and Charité went on strike. "At each of the sites, 30 to more than 100 employees are on strike," said Meike Jäger, Verdi's chief negotiator.On Tuesday, twelve teams at Vivantes hospitals and seven teams at the university hospital, which is also owned by the state, are to walk off the job. According to Verdi, at least one ward would be affected in almost all of the eight Vivantes hospitals and on the three Charité campuses - from Steglitz-Zehlendorf to Marzahn-Hellersdorf, from Spandau to Neukölln. So far, there is talk of normal wards in gastroenterology, surgery and geriatrics.Up to and including Wednesday, only a few hundred of thousands of hospital employees will probably strike, but Verdi is already threatening: if the employers do not move, they will have a vote on an indefinite strike of greater proportions starting on August 30. Then, in September, all union members could be called to an "enforcement strike." Tens of thousands of treatments in the affected wards would have to be canceled for the time being.

Charité has already postponed about 2,000 treatments until after Wednesday, and Vivantes is likely to have the same number. So far, Verdi and the management boards of Charité and Vivantes have not reached a formal emergency service agreement.

Why are these emergency service agreements so important?

Scheduled interventions that can be postponed are canceled in crises: that was the case at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and it is also common practice in the event of a strike. This does not apply to emergencies and time-critical operations (as in tumor treatment). For this, both sides agree on deployment modalities. This time, that hardly succeeds.

The management boards of Charité and Vivantes want to classify as many patients as possible as acute cases that cannot be rescheduled; the Verdi negotiators fear for the effectiveness of the industrial action. The union wants entire teams to go on strike, which means that wards will ultimately be closed - otherwise hardly anyone will feel the impact of the strike. Sick people who are already in bed will of course be cared for, said the Verdi negotiators. If no emergency service agreement is reached, a standard based on weekend services will be maintained.

However, Berlin's labor court issued a temporary injunction following a complaint by Vivantes: a strike without emergency services could lead to "danger to life and limb" of patients, and the union would - to put it simply - have to bow to the employers' emergency service ideas. The decision relates to kitchen and cleaning staff. However, it restricts the nursing strike.

What are the strikers demanding - and is an agreement in sight?

Verdi is demanding a "relief collective agreement": a fixed key for more nursing staff. In addition, the collective agreement of the public sector should apply to cleaning, transport and kitchen staff of Vivantes subsidiaries, which in individual cases can mean 800 euros more in monthly wages. This alone would cost Vivantes up to 35 million a year, according to the board, and the indebted hospital chain could not afford it.

According to Verdi's demand, at least ten percent more specialists would have to be employed in nursing. For the Charité, this means that about 500 more nursing staff would be needed in addition to the 4,700 currently employed. The labor market does not currently provide these, said Charité personnel manager Carla Eysel. If the university hospital were to commit itself to the Verdi personnel quotas, these could only be implemented if 80,000 fewer patients were cared for each year. Because clinics are paid per diagnosis with "case lump sums", there would then be less money from the health insurance companies, which would mean that jobs would have to be cut.

A formal, but in politics weighty problem comes in addition: Charité and Vivantes belong to Berlin's municipal employers' association. The umbrella organization of municipal employers (VKA) acts on behalf of this KAV, which, according to its statutes, would have to negotiate any collective agreement on relief itself.The Charité board offered the union a company-specific agreement that would be "as effective as a collective bargaining agreement," Eysel said: a strike clause would be included in a service agreement so that previously agreed staffing ratios could be enforced through industrial action. An agreement is not in sight.

What does the state government say - and what does the opposition say?

Politicians from the red-red-green coalition declared their solidarity with the nursing staff, while the responsible senators - Dilek Kalayci (Health) and Matthias Kollatz (Finance), both SPD - remained more silent. Labor Senator Elke Breitenbach (Left Party) was clear, calling the strike "legitimate". But Breitenbach is also part of the state government, which apparently sees no solution. Some in the health service and opposition say: The senate could help quite fast for hospitals, if that is also legally complicated.CDU top candidate Kai Wegner announced that the applause for the nursing staff in the Corona crisis was "a great sign," but now "tangible improvements" are needed: "There are not better working conditions without a better staffing ratio."

Wegner described the core problem as "the fact that the Senate is not fulfilling its investment obligation" - meaning the scarce funds to modernize buildings and technology. "As a result, hospitals are forced to cross-finance mandatory maintenance costs with per-case flat rates" - an accusation that is also being leveled at the hospitals themselves. Berlin's hospital association talks of 350 million euros a year to tackle dilapidated buildings and a lack of digitization.Florian Kluckert, health policy spokesman for the FDP in the House of Representatives, says: "Not only since Corona has the Berlin hospital landscape been on a drip and a permanent patient in intensive care." He says the Senate must equip the state-owned hospitals so that they are "competitive." Because the patients could have their postponed treatments, Kluckert does not say, also in other, privately-economically operated hospitals catch up.

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade

 

PORTUGAL

SEF strike causes 4 hour queues at airport

By TPN/Lusa, in News · 23-08-2021

The waiting time at Lisbon airport's border control for flight arrivals from non-Schengen space, reached 3:43 on 22 August, according to an official source from ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal, due to the SEF strike.

However, at departures, the maximum waiting time was 35 minutes during the morning, according to the airport management company.

According to ANA, the partial strike by workers of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), which began on 14 August, continues without having "relevant impact on the remaining airports".

The workers' protest aims to be "considered in the restructuring process" of the SEF, which involves changes to the entity, recalled last week the leader of the Union of Investigation, Inspection and Borders Inspectors (SIIFF), Renato Mendonça.

The union leader recalled that the law obliges them to "summon workers' representative structures and lead them to participate" in collective negotiations, but that the Government has taken an autocratic stance, which to continue implies continuing the strike and "advancing towards ways of fight harder. And that makes another kind of impact.”

Renato Mendonça explained that the partial strike will take place at least until the end of August and that the greatest impact has been in Lisbon, a strategy that he says aims to "cause a smaller impact on the flow of passengers and on the normal functioning of airports", which he claimed to be "easily verified by the fact that the queues have reached their peak of four hours".

The leader, last week, already estimated as "possible that the same happens" given the "high" number of flights expected for this weekend.

The strike was called by the SIIFF due to the lack of response from the Government on the future of the inspectors, following the approval of the bill that "provides for the transition of police powers of SEF to the PJ, PSP and GNR".

The strike did not count, however, with the participation of the Union for the Investigation and Inspection Career of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SCIF/SEF).

The protest began on 14 August and partially covers all employees working at the country's main border posts.

Unions consider strike over Brussels Airlines staff shortages

Monday, 23 August 2021

 

Credit: Belga

Staff working for Brussels Airlines are discussing strike action towards the end of August if demands to ease pressure on cabin crews are not met.

A strike notice, set for an indefinite period, was filed after talks over staffing issues failed last Thursday. Brussels Airlines had proposed 20 new recruitments, but unions said this was not sufficient to ease the workload.

“The management categorically refuses to negotiate structural solutions for the improvement of the collective agreements imposed by Lufthansa in 2020,” reads an announcement from the union.

Related News

• 
  Threat of strike looms over Brussels Airlines

“The unions and their representatives will now inform the staff. They have been under pressure since the beginning of the summer period, following a long period of economic unemployment,” it adds, according to Belga.

Exactly what measures will be taken in response will be decided in talks with employees. While a strike remains one possible outcome, it is less preferable for the unions given the impact it will have on passengers.

“It is not the intention to punish the travellers,” Olivier Van Camp from the socialist trade union explained to local media.

The management of Brussels Airlines has said it would continue to seek solutions, condemning “any social action that could harm customers and affect the workload of other staff members”.

The Brussels Times

Harvard Grad Student Union To Hold Strike Authorization Vote Beginning Sept. 13


HGSU-UAW last held a strike authorization vote in October 2019, which gave the union authorization to hold a nearly month-long strike in December. By MyeongSeo Kim

By Cara J. Chang and Meimei Xu, Crimson Staff Writers
UPDATED: Aug. 22, 2021 

Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers plans to hold a strike authorization vote beginning Sept. 13 following five months of bargaining for its second contract with Harvard.

Two-thirds of voters must vote to authorize a strike and, if authorized, the union’s bargaining committee can call for a strike at any time.

“It’s not a strike for the sake of a strike — it’s a strike because we have learned that it’s only pressure that’s going to move Harvard,” HGSU-UAW President Brandon J. Mancilla said in an interview.

On July 12, Harvard’s graduate student union accepted the University’s offer to extend its current contract to Aug. 31. The two sides have reached tentative agreements for five articles, but several key issues remain unresolved, including compensation, discrimination and harassment procedures, and union security.

In June, more than 600 HGSU-UAW members committed to organizing a strike in a letter to the University. The union announced the strike authorization vote at a general membership meeting Aug. 10.

The scheduled vote would be the union’s second strike authorization vote. In December 2019, HGSU-UAW went on strike for nearly a month in a bid to secure its first contract, ultimately moving to mediation and ratifying a one-year contract in July 2020.

Harvard administrators have begun preparations for a potential strike. In an email to University faculty and school leadership Friday, Deputy Provost Peggy Newell and Director of Labor and Employee Relations Paul R. Curran wrote that the University remains “firmly committed” to participating in negotiations in good faith and reaching an agreement with the union, but noted schools and departments should plan for a potential strike.

“With HGSU-UAW raising the potential for a strike in the fall semester, it is critical that Schools and Departments begin local contingency planning for managing the impacts of a strike,” they wrote.

If the strike authorization vote is successful, the union does not need to strike immediately. In 2019, HGSU-UAW went on strike nearly two months after its successful authorization vote. The union and the University will continue to negotiate regardless of the vote’s outcome; the union scheduled the vote for early in the fall, Mancilla said, to allow the union and the University enough time to negotiate a contract during the semester.

“A [strike authorization vote] is also for the University to know that plans are ongoing, that members are deciding, but it’s giving them a chance to engage in negotiations with us in order to avert a strike,” Mancilla said.

The union and University have already moved to proposing “packages” of contract articles, rather than proposals on individual articles, Mancilla also said.

Harvard’s latest proposals include a roughly 9 percent increase in compensation and benefits from the inaugural contract, which includes a $1.55 million increase in existing benefit pools, a new preventative dental insurance option, the extension of eligibility for the benefit pools to hourly workers, and percentage raises in wages, University Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote in an email to Harvard affiliates on Thursday.

Harvard has not changed its stance on one of the union’s key bargaining goals: allowing members to pursue complaints of identity-based discrimination, sexual harassment, and academic retaliation under union grievance procedures that allow for third-party arbitration. The University maintains that such complaints should fall under University policies.

Union bargaining committee member Ash E. Tomaszewski wrote in a statement that some of Harvard’s proposed changes — particularly percentage raises instead of bonuses and the inclusion of hourly workers in benefit pools — are “significant,” but that the package was ultimately unacceptable to the union.

“Their move on salaried percentage raises and hourly [workers’] fund access is significant but is still very far from meeting need or being remotely justifiable,” Tomaszewski wrote. “Our members know this and don’t buy the University’s weak attempt to get us to sell out survivors and give up on real recourse for a raise that doesn’t even account for inflation.”

Mancilla also said that the union does “not plan to agree to the details Garber outlined in his message.”

Mo Torres, a HGSU-UAW member and Sociology Ph.D. candidate, wrote in an email he believes the authorization vote will strengthen member participation and the union’s negotiating position.

“The more student workers involved in the process, the more democratic our union, and the more successful we’ll be overall,” he wrote.

He plans to vote for authorization to give the bargaining committee “as many tools as possible at their disposal to help us win a better contract that’s fair and just.”

CORRECTION: Aug. 22, 2021

Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article misstated the threshold for a strike authorization vote to pass. Under the UAW Constitution, two-thirds of voters must vote yes, not two-thirds of union membership.

—Staff writer Cara J. Chang can be reached at cara.chang@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @CaraChang20.

—Staff writer Meimei Xu can be reached at meimei.xu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @meimeixu7.

Nabisco bakers across the US are on strike, potentially disrupting Oreo supply

Hundreds of workers at Nabisco bakeries across the country are on strike over a proposal to change their work shifts and health care benefits.

Workers at Nabisco facilities that bake and wrap Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies have gone on strike in protest of proposed changes to work schedules and health care plans.Bloomberg via Getty Images

 Aug. 20, 2021/ Source: TODAY
By Scott Stump

Hundreds of union employees at three U.S. Nabisco bakeries that make Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies and Ritz Crackers have gone on strike to protest proposed changes amid contract negotiations with parent company Mondelez International, Inc.

Approximately 200 workers at a factory in Portland, Oregon, have been on strike for two weeks and were joined on Monday by about 400 employees at Nabisco's bakery in Richmond, Virginia. On Thursday, workers at Nabisco's bakery in Chicago also walked off the job to go on strike.

Employees at a sales distribution center in Aurora, Colorado, also joined the strike on Aug. 12. All of the workers on strike are members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union, which announced the Chicago strike on Thursday.

"This fight is about maintaining what we already have," Mike Burlingham, vice president of BCTGM Local 364 in Portland, told TODAY Food. "During the pandemic, we all were putting in a lot of hours, demand was higher, people were at home, and the snack food industry did phenomenally well.

"Mondelez made record profits and they want to thank us by closing two of the U.S. bakeries (last month) and telling the rest of us we have to take concessions, what kind of thanks is that? We make them a lot of money. It's very disheartening. How is that supposed to make us feel?"

The union is in the midst of negotiating a new four-year contract with Mondelez after the previous one expired in May.

Union leaders say that Mondelez has proposed switching from eight-hour shifts, five days a week, to 12-hour shifts, three or four days a week, without overtime, and with increased mandatory work on weekends without extra pay.

The strikes are not expected to disrupt production of Oreos, Chips Ahoy and other products made by the facilities, Mondelez spokesperson Laurie Guzzinati told TODAY. Another plant in Naperville, Illinois, that makes Triscuit crackers is operational, according to Guzzinati.

"As soon as we got word that there were local strikes, we activated continuity plans," she said. "Consumers will continue to get the cookies and crackers they know and love. The leadership team and salaried employees are continuing to focus on operations."

Burlingham disputed that there has been no disruption in production of Oreos.

"It's stopped," he said. "I'm standing outside the facility right now, and nothing is coming out of a single smoke stack. You can smell when they're baking something, and I don't smell a thing."

However, Burlingham added that replacement workers have been bused into the plant.

Union representatives in Richmond said on Wednesday that no cookies were being made at that facility, either.

“The lines require skilled labor and they just can’t run those lines without our union members in there,” BCTGM Local 358 president Keith Bragg told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Union leaders have also said the proposal by Mondelez includes different health care plans that would keep the status quo for existing employees and be more expensive for new hires, potentially creating a rift between the two types of employees. The new plan would have a deductible, which the existing plan does not have.

"We call that eating our young and that's not something we do," Burlingham said. "What's a benefit to one is a benefit to all. If one of my kids comes to work here one day, I don't want to tell him I voted to keep something to benefit me and not him."

Guzzinati said the proposed health care plans for new employees is the same "generous plan" that BCTGM approved for its workers at the facility in Naperville.

The alternative work schedules would only affect workers on a small number of high-demand production lines and would not affect overtime pay for a majority of workers, according to Guzzinati. She added that the intention is "to encourage the right behaviors, and if you're assigned to shifts, you're working those shifts."

Burlingham believes the proposal leaves the door open for all employees to be switched from 8- to 12-hour shifts.

"What's to stop them from calling every single line a high-demand line?" Burlingham said.

"Our goal has been — and continues to be — to bargain in good faith with the BCTGM leadership across our U.S. bakeries and sales distribution facilities to reach new contracts that continue to provide our employees with good wages and competitive benefits, including quality, affordable healthcare, and company-sponsored Enhanced Thrift Investment 401(k) Plan, while also taking steps to modernize some contract aspects which were written several decades ago," Mondelez said in a detailed statement.

The strikes at the three locations come after Nabisco shut down long-running factories in Atlanta and Fair Lawn, New Jersey, last month after announcing the closures in February.

Mondelez also eliminated pensions in 2018 and switched workers to 401(k) plans.

BCTGM International President Anthony Shelton accused Mondelez in a statement of moving jobs to Mexico with the recent closures.

"Nabisco’s response to these loyal, hardworking employees has been to close two more bakeries in Fairlawn, NJ and Atlanta, GA, ship 1,000 more good, middle-class jobs to Mexico and demand major contract concessions from the workers," he said. "Nabisco is making record profits but still this company wants to squeeze more out of its workers."

Guzzinati said the claim that Mondelez moved those jobs to Mexico is not true.

"Our commitment to the U.S and the U.S. supply chain is very strong," she said. "To say that a thousand jobs went to Mexico after the closure of the two bakeries is inaccurate. We remain committed to robust manufacturing here, and our focus now is working through to bring a resolution to these negotiations with workers."

Mondelez reported a 12.4% increase in net revenue in the second quarter of this year and shares of their stock rose 6% in 2020 as snack sales jumped with millions of Americans at home during the pandemic.

The Nabisco strikes come just weeks after workers at a Frito-Lay facility in Kansas went on strike for nearly three weeks to fight against back-to-back 12-hour shifts with only an eight-hour break in between. The workers, who are also represented by the BCTGM, ratified an agreement that put an end to the so-called "suicide shifts" last month, according to The New York Times.

CORRECTION (Aug. 20, 2021, 10:10 a.m. ET): The headline and subheading on a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that workers at all of Nabisco's U.S. bakeries are on strike. There is a facility Naperville, Illinois, that produces Triscuits whose workers are not part of the strike as of Aug. 20. The company considers the facility to be one of its four official bakeries in the U.S.

“We worked 16 hours a day during the pandemic”

Nabisco strike across four states continues with wide support

James Martin
12 hours ago
The World Socialist Web Site will assist in the formation of a Nabisco workers rank-and-file committee. Text (773) 234-7135 or write to contact@wsws.org to learn more.

Over 1,000 bakery workers continued to strike across four states over the weekend in Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; Richmond, Virginia; and Aurora, Colorado. The workers are fighting against the demands of Nabisco’s parent company, multinational Chicago-based food conglomerate Mondelez, to impose concessions and brutal working conditions.

Nabisco workers on strike in front of the Chicago plant [Credit: WSWS Media]

The strike began when 200 workers walked out on August 10 in Portland, Oregon. On Saturday, hundreds of workers rallied in front of the Portland plant to support the striking workers. Last week, 345 workers in the Chicago plant and 25 workers at the distribution center in Addison, Illinois joined the strike. The Nabisco workers strike is part of a broader rebellion of workers across the country against social inequality and the pandemic, from Frito-Lay/Pepsi workers to Volvo autoworkers, auto mechanics, teachers, and nurses, and unrest among Deere workers.

Mondelez is proposing a four-year contract and demanding workers accept a change in overtime a new Alternative Work Schedule (AWS) which would eliminate overtime after eight hours, and a two-tier health care plan. During the pandemic, workers have been forced to work 12 to 16- hour shifts. Workers could lose tens of thousands of dollars a year from their overtime pay in such a scheme.

The health care plan that it is also proposing for the new contract is one the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) union has already imposed on workers in the Naperville, Illinois bakery facility, which has a separate contract. The concessions that the union accepted there include higher out-of-pocket costs by workers.

Mondelez, which operates in over 160 countries, made over $3.6 billion in profits off its global workforce in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. In 2016, Mondelez laid off hundreds of workers across the country and shut down production lines in Chicago, laying off 400 workers. Last month, it shut down Nabisco facilities in Atlanta, Georgia and Fair Lawn, New Jersey. In total, over a 1,000 jobs have been slashed in the last five years, which the BCTGM did nothing to stop. Conditions for workers in Nabisco facilities in other countries, including Mexico, are just as brutal, with pay as low as $2 an hour and high turnover.

While Nabisco workers are seeking to fight, the BCTGM is isolating their struggle while imposing concessions on workers in other facilities and industries. Workers at Frito-Lay in Kansas had a sellout contract imposed on them by the BCTGM after a 28 day strike and four consecutive rejected agreements.

The BCTGM has done nothing to stop the attack on Nabisco workers’ pensions, thousands of layoffs, plant closures or health care. The union has also accepted health care concessions in Naperville, which the company is banking on to impose upon workers across the country.

Nabisco workers have widespread support throughout the country and internationally, but they should put no trust in the BCTGM to fight for their interests. Instead, they should follow the example of Volvo workers, who formed a rank-and-file committee to oppose the sellout of their strike by the United Auto Workers.

Reporters from the WSWS spoke to Nabisco workers at the Southside Chicago plant, who make Wheat Thins, Nutter Butter and Belvita products. Maggie, a worker with more than two decades at the company, said, “I don’t want to work 12 hours a day. I want my 40 hours and if I want to work the weekend, I get paid for my premium pay.

“We would lose $10,000 or more a year [under the new AWS]. Saturday and Sunday, that’s where we get our money. A lot of times I go in early. That’s 12 hours. I get time and a half for those 4 hours over. I don’t want twelve hours in my four hours of regular time. That makes no sense to me.

She also spoke out against the two-tier health care proposal “We are all working in the same plant. Why can’t we get treated equally? How can you get them with different health care plans or for a different work schedule? They sayin’ well, ‘we’re just doing this to the new people.’ No, I don’t like that! Treat them the same. I may have my son try to get a job here. I don’t want him to get treated like that. The next generation is going to get treated worse and worse.

“They previously took our pensions and said they were going to put the money in our 401(k). To me that’s not enough. You say you’re going to give me X number of dollars. But it sure is adding up kinda slowly considering I’m already up in age by the time I’m ready to get my pensions, I won’t have that money they said I would have. I don’t believe anything they say, if you ask me.”

In 2016, more than half of the production lines were cut at the facility. “They cut all the Oreo lines, a Ritz line, a Graham Cracker line and a Chicken in a Biskit line,” Maggie said. “Now we have Wheat Thins and Nutter Butter and Belvita. Line 6 is a Wheat Thins. Line 4 is a Wheat Thins. Line 6 is a ‘super line’ they call it. But it’s really a ‘Super break down all the time’ line. The line is not holding up for what it is supposed to be. It puts out a lot, but it puts out a lot of garbage, too.”

The Chicago plant, which is one of the largest industrial bakeries in the world, is falling apart, Maggie said, due to a lack of investments. “I haven’t seen anything done to the plant [in years]. They used to do a little work like painting the floors and the walls and fixing stuff. Now they don’t do any of that.

“They claim they are not making the money. You don’t want us to make money when you make all the money and get all the bonuses? Why not help the little person? The person that makes their profits? Give us a bonus! We’re doing the work!

“During the pandemic we never really left. We worked all the time. I went out for two weeks a couple times. But while I was working we worked 12 hours a day. We came to work every day. Some companies closed down but we were sent to work, seven days a week.

“Yes, we broke down. We’re tired. Look at me. Since we’ve been here, there’s been a lot of people with knee problems and shoulder problems. The company tore us up. And we still push on.”

Another worker told the WSWS, “We’re fighting for our eight hour shifts. We’re used to eight hour shifts and they want us to do twelve hours shifts. We’re short staffed. And they’re trying to take our health care. They want us to pay for health care. They want to take our overtime on weekends. Saturday we get time and a half. Sunday we get double time. If people don’t come to work, they want to bring temps in.

“They’re forcing us to work 16 hours to do this job. We’re short staffed. We don’t get bonuses. They made us work through the pandemic –16 hours every day. It started in March of 2020. We just won a battle of getting our sick days through the ordinance of Chicago that went into effect in 2016. They wouldn’t give us our sick days. We just finally won a couple months ago.

“We’re fighting for respect. They don’t give us respect. When we’re out here on the weekends, they’re at home. If you force us to work 16 hours, where is Human Resources? They’re working from home.

“We had a whole line get sick, the Belvita line. We said, ‘How about you just shut the plant down so we can all quarantine?’ But they didn’t do that. They didn’t tell us who got sick. We had to assume. We learned from our coworkers who were sick and we had to tell each other. Why would we allow you to come to work? No, stay home! We all have families, grandkids, husbands – we don’t want our loved ones to get sick. We were dropping off Gatorade and water and supporting each other

“I’ve worked here 26 years, straight out of high school. After two years, they laid us off. I had two kids. The 2016 layoffs were the worst. They took our Oreo and Ritz lines from us. They are our big moneymaker lines. They sent the lines to Mexico and they’re getting paid $2 per hour. They have the biggest turnover rate in Mexico and they are getting no benefits.

“I think everybody deserves better pay. We’re all Nabisco. People in Mexico deserve better pay. The 2016 layoffs were the worst feeling ever. Over 400 people were laid off then. It was a lot. We stood there watching them turn their stuff in. It broke our hearts. It was horrible.

“When they walked out in 2016 to cut jobs, they gave the CEO a golden package. They made so much money and we don’t get bonuses.”

 MANITOBA

"A slap in the face" 85% of Prairie Rose support staff in favour of strike mandate

 Category: Local News

 Published: Friday, 20 August 2021 12:00

 Written by Brian Oliver/Josh Jackson

The support teams of the division staff recently held a vote earlier this week

Some employees of the Prairie Rose School Division have voted to strike before the start of the upcoming school year.

The support teams of the division staff recently held a vote earlier this week, where members were overwhelmingly in support of striking. CUPE Local 4701 president Tracey Stephen explains.

"We also held voting online, so in-person voting tallied 62 people in favour, and seven not. During online voting, we had 31 in favour and nine not," says Stephen. "Right now, the division has been notified of the strike vote, and we are now expecting communication from them shortly."

In total, 85 per cent voted in favour of the strike mandate, and 15 per cent were not in favour. Those taking part are divided into two units, one being educational assistants. Unit B consists of others like librarians, bus drivers, maintenance and IT members.

"We will not come to the table with any proposals. All we want is a four-year agreement of 1.6 per cent, and 1.4 per cent and .5 and cost of living (COLA) built in because we've been without a contract since June of 2018," she says. "They countered with 0 per cent, 0 per cent, .75 per cent and 1per cent."

Around the province, divisions such as the Brandon School Division, custodians and trades at the Winnipeg School Division, custodians, library techs, bus drivers, IT and clerical at the Seven Oaks School Division, and support staff at Turtle Mountain and Park West School Divisions now have strike mandates.

Michelle Salo works as a bus driver within the Prairie Rose Division and has cast her vote. She says a lot of staff are frustrated.

"Everyone I've talked to from work has felt that it was a slap in the face," she says. "I mean, nobody wants to strike. We're just trying to get back to normal from the pandemic. It was looking like a nice bright future, and this wasn't something that we thought we would have to be dealing with."

The Prairie Rose School Division consists of 2,300 students and employs 395 staff members. There are 17 Hutterian schools and ten community schools in the division. Salo talks about some of the impacts children could face if a strike is enacted.

"It's not convenient for most of the parents on my route to drive their students to school. I know they won't be happy with that. The other issue is, will they even be able to attend school when they get there? You're looking at secretaries, librarians and custodial staff, including IT staff (and educational assistants). How is the school going to function without these people?"

Communities affected include St. Laurent, Roland, Miami, Carman, and Elie, among others. Portage Online has requested a statement from the Prairie Rose School Division board of trustees but has yet to receive a comment.

UK

When 'Tubthumping' stars Chumbawamba took part in the miner's strike, and wrote a song about Fitzwilliam, near Hemsworth

Back in 1997, the song Tubthumping became an instant and unforgettable chart hit, and its creators fleetingly became global superstars.

By David Spereall

Monday, 23rd August 2021

Chumbawamba's 1997 song 'Tubthumping' became an international hit.




But 12 years previously, when Chumbawamba were a penny-counting punk band not long out of uni, they wrote a song about the miner’s strike, centred around the pit village of Fitzwilliam, near Hemsworth.

Among all but Chumbawamba’s closest followers, the song has remained an unknown quantity. Here is the story of that song, the events that inspired it and why the group treasures it.

“We were influenced by other political bands, but at the same time we knew we weren’t anything like them,” says Boff Whalley, the Chumbawamba guitarist who wrote the lyrics to ‘Fitzwilliam’

The miner's strike lasted for a year between 1984 and 1985.

The band was formed by 10 politically charged Leeds Uni students, who lived together in an old Victorian house in Armley.

After their Tubthumping success, the band would notoriously encourage fans to steal their record if they couldn’t afford it, and threw a bucket of water over deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. More on that later.

But the roots of their anarchic approach to the world lay in their formative years in the early 1980s.

“We were different kinds of people but we shared ideas about things like the miners’ strike, war and the government,” Whalley, now 60, recalls.

Chumbawamba guitarist Boff Whalley looks back at the song's creation with fondness.

“Some were more active than others, but that was a good thing really.”

The band’s members came from working class backgrounds in, among other places, Billingham, Barnsley, or in Whalley’s case, Burnley.

As a result, he says that when the year-long strike started, as it did in the spring of 1984, it became a natural movement for the band to involve themselves in.

Meanwhile, at Kinsley Drift Mine, a little to the south of Fitzwilliam, a then 17 year-old Pete Wordsworth is among the youngest pit workers to be caught up in the industrial action.

Whalley was a guitarist in the band for 30 years, until the group amicably went their separate ways in 2012.

He’s been in the job less than a year after joining straight out of school. His dad Graham, known as Greg to his mates, works there too.

Pete, who is now the deputy mine manager at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield, recalls: “After I started, I was feeling pretty well established.

“I was earning money, which I obviously wasn’t before and I was working with my dad. So I was in a comfort zone.”

But then everything changed when the strike was called.

The National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield

“My mum didn’t work so there was no income all of a sudden," Pete adds. "So for 12 months it was just a case of getting by.

“Without friends and family I dread to think what would have happened.”

As Pete admits, the nationwide strike which started in 1984 and lasted a year “wasn’t a total surprise”.

Relations between miners and Margaret Thatcher’s government had been in freefall over proposed pit closures since the start of the decade. Things came to a head as the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) claimed there were secret plans to close 70 pits, as opposed to the 20 publicly announced.

Ministers strongly denied any such plans, but Cabinet papers from the time, released for the first time in 2014, proved the claim was accurate.

Eager to show solidarity, members of Chumbawamba joined the picket lines in Frickley, South Elmsall, and spent time with mining families and support groups for the wives.

Wakefield Express newspaper coverage from the time of the strike.

In an effort to offer practical as well as moral support, the band linked up with another punk group to play a UK-wide benefit tour to raise cash.

But a “knackered old tour bus”, which Whalley says “broke down all over the country”, cost them dearly.

“Because of the bus, we ended up making about £60 from a 10 day tour,” he recalls.

“Around the same time we’d stand outside shopping centres with buckets for the Frickley Miners Support Group and we’d make £60 in a day. At that point, we realised we’re doing this wrong.”

Back on the picket lines, Whalley admits he was surprised to find that the atmosphere was not all doom and gloom.

“Before I went down you think of these blokes who’ve got no money, and you think they’re always stood round fires and it’s awful," he explains.

“But then you get there and they’re all just having a laugh and taking the p***. "And then you realise, of course they are, because they’re just like everyone else.”

Whalley, who has since written a play about the strike from the point of view of three sisters, says it's important to remember that in troubled times and places, “people still get married and have babies and birthday parties.”

Pete, whose family actually hailed from the Barnsley mining village of Jump, despite working at the Kinsley mine with his dad, agrees that community spirit was a vital source of strength for those involved.

“Everyone rallied round together and supported each other,” he says.

“That was the thing about pit villages, that’s just what they did.

“It was tough but there was never a day where you woke up and thought you wouldn’t get fed. There was too many nice people about to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

“There were the soup kitchens, where my mum helped out and we were donated some chickens, so we had free eggs for a while.”

Three weeks after the notorious Battle of Orgreave in June, where picketers and police were involved in violent clashes, rioting broke out in Fitzwilliam.

Twenty people were arrested, with nine later convicted of public order offences.

Public sympathy in the community however, was staunchly with those who became known as The Fitzwilliam Nine. Footage on YouTube captures the peaceful and noisy demonstration held outside Castleford Magistrates Court on the day they appeared.

Having witnessed the strike first hand, Whalley and the band felt compelled to put pen-to-paper. ‘Fitzwilliam’ was released as an LP in 1985.

For those who only know Chumbawamba for Tubthumping and its upbeat tale about boozing, chaos and defeating adversity, Fitzwilliam couldn’t be more different.

Tune-wise it’s a slow moving, almost hymn-like folk song.

Its message however, with lines such as “Cops in the village to truncheon your bride” and “Come out of your houses - there’s a war on outside”, were anything but as subtle.

Pete recalls how he and his father picketed but were keen to distance themselves from the violent scenes, such as those seen at Orgreave.

“My dad always said if it’s a dispute about the mines it should be sorted out through negotiation and talking round a table,” he remembers.

Whalley offers a different take however, saying that the strike actually prompted some Chumbawamba members to renounce their pacifism.

“Rather than just sitting cross legged and waiting for the police to arrest them, we thought people were entitled to fight back,” he counters.

The song switches from a rallying cry to a more sombre tone, but the line, “Wiser and stronger the people have changed”, does strike a rare and surprising chord of hope.

Whalley says the band wanted to talk about people and the future, “rather than it just being about a place where people got their heads cracked open and sent to prison, or people struggled because they had no money.”


He says that if he was writing a song about the legacy of pit closures now he’d “avoid singing a tale of woe, loss and damage to communities,” as “shocking” as he found the plight of Fitzwilliam after the Kinsley mine shut for good in 1986.

The song remains a collector’s item - in 10 years on YouTube it’s had a relatively meagre 13,000 views, compared with the 9.3million who've watched Tubthumping.

But for Whalley, the track and the era in which it was written marked an “absolute turning point” for the versatile band, as he believes it proved they could be anti-establishment without being overly noisy.

“We all think protest music is Rage Against the Machine and blokes with guitars shouting,” he says.

“That stuff is brilliant, but what we were saying was, “There’s another way to do it as well.”

Despite ‘Tubthumping’ introducing Chumbawamba to a whole new audience in the late 90s, the band did anything but mellow.

Whalley recalls how frontman Dunstan Bruce laughed down the phone when asked by record label EMI if they wanted to retract the suggestion that fans should steal from HMV if they couldn’t pay for the record. Vocalist Alice Nutter, who sang on 'Fitzwilliam' had made the remark on US television.

Soaking Prescott at the 1998 Brit Awards, shortly after Bruce proclaimed that New Labour had “sold out the dockers, just like they’ll sell out the rest of us”, remains an enduring memory too.

“EMI Germany (who the band were actually signed to) thought that was really funny, Whalley recalls, with a smile.

“But EMI Britain were livid. One of their heads sent us a personal note, saying they were friends with Tony Blair and they took it as a personal slight.”

Back in Fitzwilliam, after Kinsley mine shut, Pete’s father retired and Pete himself went onto work at a coalfield in Selby.

As part of his work with mining museum now, Pete says it’s “imperative” that the stories of those who worked down the pits are told, and that people are educated about the crucial role coal played in helping post-war Britain back to its feet.

Last year, he returned to Fitzwilliam for the first time since the strike.

"I remembered how it all looked," he says. "As you drove down the lane, you had the offices on the left-hand side and the pit on the right.

"It all looks a bit overgrown now. I'm surprised they haven't really done anything with the area because it was a big piece of land.

“I realised it was probably nearly 40 years since I’d been and I just stood there recalling those good memories,” he says.

“This was where I got my first employment. And it's where I made a lot of friends.”

Local Democracy Reporting Service

NUM president Arthur Scargill led the industrial action.

Quebec ferry workers to go on strike over stalled contract negotiations


The Canadian Press Staff
Published Thursday, August 12, 2021 


Italian-built ferry F.A. Gauthier is docked for repairs at Davie Shipyard in Levis, Que., Tuesday, July 16, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

MONTREAL -- Numerous strike days are planned by workers of the Regroupement des traversiers starting Thursday, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) confirmed.

The union announces that the Sorel-Tracy-Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola ferry will be the first to be affected by the strike, which will begin Thursday at 4 p.m. and end Saturday at 3:59 p.m.

On the Quebec-Lévis crossing, strikes will begin Friday at 5:30 a.m. until Sunday at 5:29 a.m.
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The Matane-Godbout-Baie-Comeau passage will be affected from Friday at 6 a.m. to Sunday at 5:59 a.m.

The CSN explains that the negotiation meeting held last Tuesday in the presence of a conciliator did not result in a satisfactory settlement for union members.

They say they have been negotiating with the Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ) for a year and a half, but claims the employer has remained completely closed to certain demands concerning compensation for work-related inconveniences.

The 200 or so workers that will go on strike include bridge and dock attendants, cashiers, deckhands, watchmen and welders.

Mechanical and navigation officers of the Sorel-Tracy-Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola, Quebec-Lévis, L'Isle-aux-Coudres, Matane-Godbout-Baie-Comeau and Tadoussac ferries will also be on strike this weekend to demand negotiations on a new work contract.

These workers are members of the steelworkers union affiliated with the FTQ.

The walkout will begin Saturday at 6 a.m. and normal activities will resume Monday at the same time.

In total, five days of strike action are planned, although the dates of the last three days have not yet been announced.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 12, 2021.

‘We went from heroes to zeroes’: US nurses strike over work conditions

Nurses across the US are picketing over severe understaffing issues and inadequate equipment amid the pandemic

Nurses and medical professionals at Los Robles Regional medical center picket in California in November 2020. Photograph: Al Seib/Rex/Shutterstock


Michael Sainato
Fri 30 Jul 2021

Last April people across America came out of quarantine each night to cheer the healthcare workers fighting to save lives a the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Sixteen months on, nurses around the US are holding strikes and picket actions amid claims of deteriorating working conditions and severe understaffing issues.


‘Heart-wrenching’: inside a hospital grappling with Delta and vaccine hesitancy

“Most of us felt like we went from heroes to zeroes quickly,” said Dominique Muldoon, a nurse for more than 20 years at Saint Vincent’s hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts.

For over four months, more than 700 nurses at the Tenet Healthcare-owned Saint Vincent hospital have been on strike, the second longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts’ history. The hospital has brought in replacement workers throughout the strike and have spent more than $30,000 a day on police coverage during the strike.
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Muldoon, co-chair of the local bargaining unit, said understaffing worsened during the pandemic, with more staffing cuts and furloughs, while nurses worked through breaks and past scheduled shifts to try to keep up with the demand for patient care.

“Nurses were going home at night in their cars crying,” said Muldoon. “You’ll end up staying late or working through your break trying to fit the workload all in, but ultimately become so frustrated, because eventually you keep trying to overcompensate and cannot keep up with it.”

Even through coronavirus surges, Muldoon affirmed understaffing and cuts were the “new normal” at the hospital, despite nurses going above and beyond during an emergency situation to take care of patients.

“We’ve done our jobs long enough to know what standard we should need for patients,” she said.

Marlena Pellegrino, a nurse at Saint Vincent hospital, said nurses and the union tried to negotiate with the hospital administration to enact safe staffing ratios since before the pandemic, but their concerns were repeatedly brushed aside.

“The respect for our profession was not evident by this employer and it’s been going on for a long time. I think the pandemic shined a spotlight on that. We worked through some very tumultuous times where our employer could have stepped up to assist us instead of being an obstacle in our way of trying to care for our patients,” said Pellegrino. “When there aren’t enough nurses at the bedside, bad things can happen to patients so we were forced to take this step until they’re resolved.”

Tenet Healthcare did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In Chicago, about 300 nurses at Community First medical center held a one-day strike on 26 July over hospital failures during the pandemic and new contract negotiations.

Kathy Haff, an emergency room nurse at Community First medical center for 29 years, explained the hospital lost a significant number of nurses on staff during the pandemic, including three nurses who died from the virus, and now nurses are working severely understaffed and with inadequate equipment to perform their duties.
All those ‘healthcare heroes’ signs were garbage ... We’re like healthcare suckers because they didn’t protect usKathy Haff

“They don’t appreciate us. They claim to, but they don’t. They just take advantage of us left and right,” said Haff. “We’re working at half staff basically. They don’t care that we’re short. They just keep loading us up and keep criticizing if you’re not moving fast enough. There is no appreciation. All those ‘healthcare heroes’ signs were garbage. We didn’t believe one bit of them. We’re like, yeah whatever. We’re like healthcare suckers because they didn’t protect us.”

Community First medical center denied staffing issues. “Community First has policies and protocols to evaluate daily volumes and acuity by department by each shift or more frequently, as needed,” said the interim CEO for the hospital in a statement.

About 1,400 nurses at USC Keck hospital and USC Norris Cancer hospital in Los Angeles held a two-day strike on 13 and 14 July over understaffing and patient safety concerns.


Lost on the frontline: US healthcare workers who died fighting Covid-19

Thousands of nurses represented by National Nurses United at hospitals throughout California and Texas held a day of action on 21 July to call attention to workplace issues highlighted by the pandemic.

Juan Anchondo, a nurse for nearly 18 years at Las Palmas medical center in El Paso, Texas, explained staffing issues at his hospital have worsened throughout the pandemic as nearby hospitals have lured workers away with bonuses and better pay, and support nurses from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) left several months ago after assisting with Covid-19 surges in the region.

“People don’t take breaks,” said Anchondo. “One of the things we’re trying to negotiate is a relief break nurse, so nurses can properly decompress and take a break without interruptions.”

Kimberly Smith, an ICU nurse for 12 years at the Corpus Christi medical center in Texas, said unsafe staffing was a prevailing issue in new union contract negotiations but that these important issues to nurses have fallen by the wayside for the sake of profits and public relations campaigns asserting nurses are heroes for working on the frontlines during the pandemic and empty thank you events where nurses were given free hotdogs.

“I just want to be safe at work. I don’t need a hotdog. You’re telling me I’m a hero and how wonderful I am. Just make the working conditions safe. That’s all nurses want. We want to feel like we’re able to give the best care we can and have enough resources to do it,” said Smith, who added that nurses regularly skip breaks because there is no staff to relieve them. ‘‘Even before the pandemic the staffing wasn’t this bad. It’s been a horrible year. Nurses have passed away, are getting out of the profession, they’re retiring.”

A Corpus Christi Medical Center spokesperson denied staffing shortages at the hospital. “Our goal since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has been to protect our frontline clinicians and caregivers so they are able to continue to care for our patients and our communities,” they said. “We have worked to procure the much-needed PPE, supplies and staffing resources needed to combat this pandemic.”