Largest steel factory in Iraq, Kurdistan Region is 75 percent complete: CEO

Once the factory is inaugurated, it can provide 2,000 jobs. 

The factory is also expected to produce 750,000 tons of steel each year, the CEO said.

Halgurd Sherwani 2021/12/09


ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – About 75 percent of Van Steel, the largest steel factory in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, has been completed.

The mega project was approved by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) ninth cabinet in May and is expected to be inaugurated by next May.

Shwan Mohammad, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the project, told Kurdistan 24 that the factory will enhance the autonomous region’s infrastructure and will be “able to meet demands for construction materials in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.”

Almost 95 percent of the 700 laborers working on the project are local. They have been working two shifts since the project began, according to Mohammad.

Once the factory is inaugurated, it can provide 2,000 jobs. The factory is also expected to produce 750,000 tons of steel each year, the CEO said.

In order to lessen the region’s dependency on the sale of oil for revenue, the KRG’s ninth cabinet has worked to diversify its sources of revenue through such industrial and agricultural projects.

In May, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani inaugurated a $100-million steel factory in Erbil province with an annual production capacity of 350,000 tons.

Hemin Hayne contributed to this report.

UK

Aston Martin faces strike action over DB scheme closure

By Tom Higgins | December 14, 2021

Workers at carmaker Aston Martin have threatened industrial action following news that it plans to close its defined benefit pension scheme in January 2022.

Unite the union said that workers “voted overwhelmingly in a consultative ballot” for full-scale industrial action in the new year, in order to protect their retirement incomes.

Some 400 members of the Aston Martin Lagonda Limited Pension Scheme are set to be affected by the proposed change. The company has approximately 2,000 employees in total.

Staff at sites in Gaydon and Wellesbourne, both in Warwickshire, as well as Milton Keynes, Newport Pagnell, and St Athan in South Wales took part in the consultative ballot.

These workers have done as asked and saved for their retirement, but they have also worked hard to deliver improved profits for Aston Martin. There is, therefore, no case to be made for closing the DB pension schemes, a move that robs our members of tens of thousands of pounds – in the case of Aston Martin workers, that is about £100,000

Sharon Graham, Unite

Workers face losing about £100,000 in retirement income if the DB scheme, based on a career-averaged salary, is closed from February next year, Unite argued.

The company wants to move the DB members to the existing defined contribution scheme, which currently covers the majority of the workforce and also new employees.

However, Unite argues that such DC schemes are at “the mercy of sudden fluctuations in global stock markets and produce worse retirement incomes”.

Changing gears

Plans to close the company’s DB scheme come four years after it transitioned away from a final salary model.

In 2017, its structure was changed to a career average revalued earnings scheme. The scheme was closed to new entrants on May 31 2011.

According to the pension fund’s 2020 actuarial valuation, the value of its assets stood at £314.6m, sufficient to cover 76 per cent of the benefits that had accrued to members.

It had been planned that from January 2022, contributions would increase from 23.7 per cent to 37.5 per cent for active members who do not participate in the salary sacrifice scheme. Those who do participate make no contributions.

From January 1 2022, the group contribution would increase from 30.2 per cent and 34.7 per cent to 44 per cent and 48.5 per cent for members who opted for benefits of 1/80th’s and 1/70th’s of pensionable salary, respectively.

With the scheme deficit standing at £97m, the group agreed in December 2020 to increase the recovery plan contributions from £7.1m to £15m a year, effective from 2021 to 2027.

Estimated contributions for the year ending December 31 2021 were £20.6m, the group’s 2020 annual report stated.

Aston Martin backs DB closure

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “We will back our members at Aston Martin 100 per cent if they decide to take industrial action to defend their pensions and defeat this threat to their retirement incomes.  

“These workers have done as asked and saved for their retirement, but they have also worked hard to deliver improved profits for Aston Martin. There is, therefore, no case to be made for closing the DB pension schemes, a move that robs our members of tens of thousands of pounds — in the case of Aston Martin workers, that is about £100,000.

“Aston Martin’s whole workforce is now aware of the gross inadequacy of the existing DC scheme by comparison, and this will be a significant factor when we put forward our claim in the 2022 pay review,” she added.

A spokesperson for Aston Martin told Pensions Expert: “As a responsible employer, Aston Martin has a duty to deliver financially sustainable pension arrangements for its circa 2,000 employees, while managing its pension risks and underlying costs.

“Having completed a detailed review of its future pension arrangements, and in line with many other UK employers, it is proposing changes to its DB scheme affecting circa 400 employees.

Union ballots for strike action over schools’ exit from Teachers’ scheme 

The National Education Union is balloting its members on industrial action over plans by the Girls’ Day School Trust to exit the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.

Read more

“Should these changes occur, Aston Martin has outlined an attractive transition arrangement, including a one-off cash payment and equity in the company. This is in addition to supporting the DB pension scheme to meet the cost of pension benefits already earned,” the spokesperson continued.

“Aston Martin remains in direct communication with the affected employees, and their representatives, regarding these changes and is unable to comment further at this time.”

The consultation period with members is due to end on December 17, although Unite has called for it to be extended.

Mallorca freight transporters back next week's strike action

Scheduled for Monday to Wednesday

2021-12-17 Palma By Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

Freight lorries arriving in Palma.

17-12-2021

The president of the association of freight transporters in the Balearics, Ezequiel Horrach, says that companies will be supporting national strike action next week. There will be vehicle protests on Monday to Wednesday, the action having been called by the national road transport committee.

Horrach points to an "unsustainable" situation because of current regulations and progressive increases in fuel prices. He is demanding amendment of the current transport contract law and the drafting of a mobility and energy transition plan that is "adjusted to reality" and not to future plans which are not immediate. He also wants fiscal harmonisation and continuation of diesel for professional purposes.

However, the distributors in the Balearics have said that they will not support the action. The president of the distributors association, Bartolomé Servera, says that "it is one thing to understand and support the demands of the transport sector, which seem fair to the distributors, and quite another to support a strike, something that will not happen".

Bars, restaurants and other customers can "rest assured". The rumour that the distributors will back the strike is not true. "We will be working normally on those three days."

USA

Hotel Union Labor Primed for Action in 2022
by Daniel Litwinon

Dec 22, 2021

Now that the hospitality economy is deep in the weeds of the holiday season, hoteliers are hopeful hotel workers can handle a return to form for holiday travel bookings. American Airlines reports a massive rebound for holiday travel, with 109 million people set to travel 50 miles or more between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, 34% more than 2020.

State tourism organizations are signaling high booking numbers for the two weeks of Christmas and New Years, as well; Visit Orlando places reservations at 91% of 2019’s pre-pandemic levels. The Wall Street Journal reports New York hotel owners are cautiously optimistic for a rise in occupancy rates compared to the last two months.

But this rise in demand also proves to be pressure on a strained hospitality workforce, and highlights the continuing difficulties hotel labor faces. The industry has been hit hard by the Great Resignation. September reporting from the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the quit rate in the hospitality and leisure sector at 6.4%, almost double the national average of 3%, which is itself an all-time high since reporting began 21 years ago.



And when workers aren’t quitting, they’re striking. Most recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer broke news of hotel workers at the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District Hotel, members of Philadelphia’s Unite Here Local 274, going on strike, their bodies “deteriorating,” as one worker called it, after being overworked and underpaid. This strike could be one of many if the motivating factors giving hotel labor more power and militancy don’t change.

Experts say, to fully understand the issue, get a grasp on what’s to come, and come up with a solution that meets workers’ and the industry’s needs, it’s critical to look back at trends of unionization over the years, look ahead and expiring union contracts in 2022, and be honest about the realities of hospitality work in today’s environment.


Hospitality Faces a Holiday Labor Reckoning Years in the Making

“We went from one third of workers unionized to about 10% today. So in terms of what’s gonna happen now, I don’t think there’s much room to go much more down.” – Alexis Walker

Alexis Walker, Chair of History & Political Science at Saint Martin’s University, focused her research over the years on American political development and organized labor. Looking at the current wave of strikes across the country, Walker explained that it bookends almost 70 years of declining union numbers, waning support from the public, and backlash from the government against labor since its unionization peak in 1953.

“[Unionized] labor has become such a small part of the workforce, so seeing this kind of mobilization, activism among workers, there’s potential for growth in a way that we haven’t seen in a while,” Walker said.

If anything, the current wave should feel unprecedented because of that steady decline; strikes numbers have also been waning since the 80s, Walker said. But she notes that this resurgence is indicative of pent up frustrations and energy, as well as market factors, like the pull-away of unemployment benefits, that domino into labor pressures.

“One is supply chain shortages that mean many industries are under a lot of pressure to meet mounting demand. And then we see a labor shortage with employers struggling to fill positions. This means when a strike happens, employers don’t have one of the big tools they often use to break strikes: hiring replacement workers,” Walker said.

More pressures on employers means more reasons to listen to striking workers’ demands. Walker isn’t sure this means the right demands are being heard, though. One tactic she’s seen from employers as of late is responding to strikes with more COVID protections, reimbursement, and paid leave. Employers, especially hoteliers, as well as hotel labor, are understanding that this is more than a COVID issue, though.

“COVID has amplified frustrations, but what’s coming out in these strikes and the demands workers are making is really speaking to decades long frustration. Wage stagnation. Also contracts within unionized work places that they agreed to when workers felt they didn’t have any leverage,” Walker said. “That frustration isn’t going to be solved by thinking this is just COVID.”


Learning From the Philadelphia Wyndham Strike

“The crystal ball is really cloudy to see what the union demands are going to be and what management is willing to give to, and whether the focus is going to be economic or the focus is going to be operational.” – David Sherwyn

What’s unique about the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District Hotel strike isn’t in the demands or the strike itself, per se, but the extra layer of conditions that motivated the strike in the first place.

“The Philly strike is based on a property that hasn’t had a [union] contract for years, so this is a situation where there’s a time where, for whatever reason, the property and the union couldn’t come to an agreement and now there’s a time where the employees feel like they have leverage,” said David Sherwyn, Director of the Cornell Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations at Cornell University.

Sherwyn follows trends in hotel unionization actively, from the minutia of specific union contracts to ideating hotel labor solutions for the whole industry. He emphasizes that strikes aren’t just taken on a whim, even if the conditions are right. Unions and workers will only engage in a strike when there’s a contract on the table, and they feel they have the leverage to make material changes to their well-being.

“When you’re on strike, you’re not getting paid, you’re not getting health insurance, you don’t get unemployment. Ultimately, you can be permanently replaced,” Sherwyn said.

For hotel labor specifically, recent mounting demand from holiday travel as well aspects of the job that exist regardless of the season are creating discontent that can turn into labor militancy. Sherwyn explained the variety of issues; some markets have labor shortages, while other hotels are barely functioning, with no guests and many workers on furlough. For workers, though, the reason for shortages doesn’t matter as much as the effect.

“If you’re going to work each day, the geopolitical or economic reasons for a labor shortage doesn’t really affect you, you just know there’s not enough people for you to work with, there’s not enough colleagues, and there’s a need for overtime,” he said.

With a number of union contracts expiring in 2022, will more service industry unions go out on strike to force the issue?

“They’ll only do that if they believe, in the contract, that they’ll get something that makes the strike worth it,” Sherwyn answered.

“What you’re likely going to see is one brand and Unite Here will be working together, and what usually happens is, once Unite Here and the brand settle in a city, it sort of follows in that city that the other brands sign on to something,” he said. “I’m really looking at LA, San Fransisco, Chicago, DC, Boston…large cities with a bunch of union hotels, substantial density, that will dictate where we’re going.”

If more strikes, or at the very least tense contract negotiations, are imminent for hotels in 2022, is there anything unions and hotels can do proactively to improve working conditions for workers and save themselves from industry disruptions in the new year? Sherwyn’s solution is to rethink how workers in the industry view their career path; usually, this means offering a career path in the first place.

“What we really have to do is kind of bifurcate and look at things in two different ways. How do we make this job for people who want this to be their job forever something that is rewarding at every level… and then how do we attract the person who says ‘this is my career’ and show them this is a career path, and work together, union and management, on both of those things,” Sherwyn said.


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UK

Bus strikes set to cause chaos for Stagecoach in Cambridge from next week

They have not had a salary increase for more than two-and-half-year

By Becca Field

 28 DEC 2021


Cambridge bus drivers have voted to strike in the first week of January potentially causing travel chaos in the city.

Cambus drivers, who have reportedly not had a pay rise since April 2019, are planning to hold 10 days of strike action next month, starting on Tuesday, January 4.

Union Unite has said its members – who are drivers, engineers, cleaners, and shunters - based at Cambridge, Fenstanton, and Peterborough deserve better.

The strikes in the New Year follow an ongoing row over their pay.

The workers employed by Cambus Ltd, which is part of Stagecoach, previously rejected a 1.5 per cent pay offer from April 2021 with a further 1.5 per cent next month for the pay year 2021/22 – at a time when the RPI rate of inflation has soared to six per cent.

However, Stagecoach claims there is “no reason why an agreement cannot be reached” and talks with the union are planned for next week.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “We will be standing 100 per cent behind our members at Cambus who have not had a pay rise since April 2019. They have suffered a dramatic cut in pay in real terms, especially as inflation has now reached a decade-high of 7.1 per cent and household bills have gone through the roof.

“Despite Stagecoach pleading poverty, the company remains extremely profitable with its latest accounts revealing the group made a profit of £58.4million. The company also has £875million in liquid assets.”

Unite regional officer Mark Plumb added: “Our members should not pay for the continuing pandemic, while the employer has readily scooped up UK taxpayer support, including cash from the furlough scheme. The 10 days of strike action will, unfortunately, cause travel chaos for bus users across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

“However, there is now a window of opportunity for the management to come forward with a realistic pay offer for our members that reflects the fast-rising rate of inflation, otherwise the strikes will go ahead.”

The union has predicted the upcoming strikes will likely affect workers and leisure travellers throughout the county.

Darren Roe, managing director for Stagecoach East, said: “Stagecoach has reached agreements with Unite for thousands of employees covering the majority of our depots across the UK, and there is no reason why an agreement cannot be reached for our people in Cambridge, Fenstanton and Peterborough.

“We’re very proud of our team who do a fantastic job in delivering vital transport connections for local people. We are fully committed to working constructively with Unite to deliver pay proposals that are fair to our people, and which also ensure the long-term sustainability of the bus network for local communities at a time when passenger numbers are significantly below pre-Covid levels.

“We have further talks planned with Unite next week and remain hopeful an agreement can be reached with local union representatives to avoid strike action that will cause unnecessary disruption for our local communities and our own teams.

“We will keep our website updated with the latest information on our services and our planned timetables.”

Philex labor union votes to go on strike
December 28, 2021

PHILEX MINING Corp. said on Monday that its labor unit voted to go on strike, citing bargaining deadlock as the alleged ground.

In a stock exchange disclosure, Philex said Philex Mines Independent Labor Union (PMILU) submitted the results of the strike vote referendum on Dec. 27 to the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE).

It said that on Dec. 23, PMILU voted to reject Philex’s “improved” offer in the negotiation of their collective bargaining agreement.

In a Viber message, Philex Public and Regulatory Affairs Head Francis G. Ballesteros said the company “remains focused on resolving this issue in coordination” with the DoLE, reiterating what was said in the disclosure.

Last week, Philex announced its plan for a $224-million copper and gold mining project in Surigao del Norte. It will be ready for commercial use by late 2024 or early 2025, it said.

On Monday, shares in Philex rose 2.24% or 11 centavos to close at P5.01 apiece.

Philex is one of three Philippine units of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and PLDT, Inc.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson

A lengthy doctors’ strike over understaffing sparks chaos at New Delhi hospitals.

A protest over staffing shortages at state-run hospitals in New Delhi called by a doctors’ association on Tuesday.

Credit...Adnan Abidi/Reuters

By Sameer Yasir
Dec. 28, 2021

A lengthy doctors’ strike in New Delhi against staffing shortages at state-run hospitals has crippled health services, creating fears of disaster if the Omicron variant overwhelms medical facilities.

Medical students from across India have joined the protests, which intensified two weeks ago and have grown angrier after police officers were seen beating junior doctors during a march on Monday.

The New Delhi government has expressed concern over a rising number of coronavirus cases and announced new measures, including a nighttime curfew, to slow the spread of the virus. While the country’s overall case count remains low, daily infections in the capital region have risen by more than 300 percent over the past two weeks, according to the Our World in Data Project at the University of Oxford. It is unclear how many of the new cases are of the Omicron variant.

As the doctors’ strike has stretched on, drawing in recent graduates and tens of thousands of the more than 70,000 doctors who work at government medical facilities nationwide, emergency health services have been the worst hit.

Videos from major state-run hospitals in New Delhi have shown patients on stretchers lying unattended outside emergency rooms. Many Indians rely on state medical facilities for care because of the high cost of treatment at private hospitals.

The protests were triggered by delays in placing medical school graduates in jobs at government health facilities, as India’s Supreme Court considers an affirmative action policy aimed at increasing the share of positions reserved for underrepresented communities. Protesting doctors say they are not against the quotas, but want the court to expedite its decision so that graduates can begin their jobs.

During India’s catastrophic coronavirus wave earlier this year, doctors and other medical personnel found themselves short-handed and underfunded as they battled an outbreak that at its height was causing 4,000 deaths a day. Doctors associations say that more than 1,500 doctors have died from Covid since the pandemic began

Protests continued across the country and outside major hospitals in New Delhi on Tuesday, a day after police officers in the capital detained more than 2,500 protesting doctors who were walking toward the residence of India’s health minister.

India’s health ministry said it was saddened over the treatment of doctors during the protest on Monday, but said it could not proceed with job placements while the issue was being heard in the country’s top court.

Dr. Suvrankar Datta, an official for the Federation of All India Medical Association, a doctors’ group that supports the strike, said as coronavirus cases rise in New Delhi and other parts of the country, there will not be enough doctors to handle the crisis.

“We have already communicated to the government so many times that the health care infrastructure is understaffed like never before,” he said. If graduates are not placed in jobs quickly, he added, it creates “a completely catastrophic situation when cases rise.”

Sameer Yasir is a reporter for The New York Times. He joined The Times in 2020 and is based in New Delhi. @sameeryasir

 

BNP's Italian bank, unions spar over strike take-up

12/27/2021 

MILAN, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Italian banking unions on Tuesday challenged the figure provided by BNL, the Italian arm of French banking group BNP Paribas, over the take up of the previous day's strike in a rare show of open confrontation in the sector.

BNL on Monday said 29.8% of its workers had joined the strike - the first such protest since the 1990s.

The bank said it had ensured it could continue to operate thanks to its digital capabilities at time when workers were also absent due to year-end holidays.

Unions on Tuesday said BNL should clarify how it had calculated the number given than 80% of branches had remained shut.

"Embracing the clear challenge launched by the company unions will strive to render even louder workers' cries of protest," Fabi, First-Cisl, Fisac-Cgil, Uilca and Unisin said in a joint statement.

Such a degree of confrontation is unusual in Italy's banking sector, where workers are only laid off through early retirement schemes offered to older employees on a voluntary basis and very costly for lenders to fund.

Under such schemes, workers receive up to 80-90% of the salary from a fund financed by the banks laying off staff until they actually qualify for pension.

Employees' requests to join the scheme normally exceed the number of departures planned by banks.

The animosity highlights the difficult phase the industry is enduring with negative rates making lending unprofitable, while it faces a digital challenge from non-banking players which are not subject to the same tight regulation and oversight.

Workers at BNL protested against its decision to use external providers for IT and back office services, a move that unions said affects 900 out of a total of 11,500 BNL employees in its central offices and around 700 branches across Italy.

Unions have also voiced grievances about BNL's sale to Worldline in July of an 80% stake in its card payment processing business Axepta Italy. (Reporting by Valentina Za; Additional rpeorting by Giulio Piovaccari; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

From essential status to strikes, 2021 was the 'year of the worker'

As the pandemic wore on, the year was dominated by strikes, unionization efforts and worker mobilization.

Union members hold signs during a  strike against Kellogg's in Battle Creek, 

Michigan, on Dec. 17, 2021.

Dec. 28, 2021, 9:23 AM MST
By Ahiza García-Hodges

The months long Kellogg’s strike that ended last week capped a year of national unrest among workers in industries from entertainment to health care and manufacturing, as the country continues to grapple with the effects of the pandemic.

“There have been years where we thought we could see potential for ‘Year of the Worker’ but arguably it’s hard to see a year that’s been so full of worker activation,” said Ariel Avgar, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “This year happened really quickly but it happened on the foundation of a slower shift. I think there are factors that are economic and attitudinal that have collided in a way that’s rare.”

Essential work

Many of the workers who mobilized for better working conditions this year were deemed essential by their employers, lawmakers and the media. However, after nearly two years of balancing their health and safety working on the front lines of the pandemic, some of these workers began to question that classification.

“There’s a huge gap between the claimed essentiality and the actual working conditions and lived realities of these workers,” Avgar said.

Low-wage workers suffered disproportionately during the pandemic and began demanding improvements in the form of increased wages, meal and rest breaks, better benefits and shorter shifts. The pandemic served as a wake-up call of sorts for them by exacerbating existing issues and highlighting the fact that work could literally pose a threat to their lives.

“The pandemic has shown that working conditions have clear implications for workers’ health and safety and that a lack of voice can affect workers’ health,” he said. “It gave it a much clearer sense of the stakes.”

Bad behavior

The pandemic has placed incredible strain on workers risking their lives to go to work. But for those in the service industry, it’s added an additional stressor as they’ve had to enforce mask mandates — in many cases, facing resistance from customers and forcing them to make hard choices that may compromise their safety

“My employees are so afraid to come to work,” said a restaurant owner in the Midwest, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. “The people who come in don’t want to wear masks even though it’s mandated. They get violent. They spit on waiters. One person who got spit on quit and went to a bar where they don’t enforce the mandate, which is against the law, but they feel safer.”

The year has also seen extreme weather and natural disasters that have further endangered workers. In one extreme example, workers at a factory in Kentucky said they were threatened with termination if they left their shifts early even as a tornado approached their city. There has also been a recent increase in smash-and-grab robberies that has added to concerns about safety.

“Keeping my employees safe — that’s what’s keeping me on edge,” said Nicole Denny, owner of the J’Adore Boutique in Cary, North Carolina, which was hit by a smash-and-grab robbery in December. “My employees don’t want to work alone, so I don’t open if I don’t have two people to work. It’s not fair to them. We also don’t stay open past 5 p.m., because nobody wants to work once it’s dark.”

Push for unionization

The importance of having a voice led workers at numerous businesses, including Starbucks and Amazon, to push for union representation in their workplaces. While not all the efforts have been successful, the increasing mobilization is evidence of shifting attitudes, according to Avgar.

In Buffalo, New York, workers at three Starbucks locations pushed for the ability to join a union. One store won its unionization vote, making it the first company-owned location in the country to organize successfully. Starbucks workers at other locations, including Seattle, have also pushed for unionization votes.


The U.S. has traditionally seen a decline in support for unions ... but the last two years and seeing the importance of workers has shifted broad public opinion on this.

Amazon warehouse workers have also pressed for unionization. After an initial push at an Alabama warehouse was unsuccessful, workers at that location will be allowed to redo the election. Amazon workers at a location in Staten Island have also started to organize.

“The U.S. has traditionally seen a decline in support for unions and labor movement, but I think the experience over the last two years and seeing the importance of workers has shifted broad public opinion on this,” Avgar said. “That external support provides legitimacy and support for these numerous examples of collective action that we’re seeing.”

"Striketober"

In several instances, workers who'd had enough threatened or decided to go on strike when they couldn’t reach an agreement with their employers. Nearly 100,000 workers from health care to Hollywood challenged their working conditions, demanding higher wages and better benefits. The simultaneous worker activism, known as a “strike wave,” culminated in October and was dubbed “Striketober.”

Kellogg’s workers started their strike in October in order to prevent the adoption of a two-tier wage and benefit system, where new hires are paid less and receive fewer benefits than existing workers. The new agreement does not include a two-tier wage system but does include a moratorium on plant closures, an increase in pensions, and cost of living raises.

More than 10,000 John Deere workers went on strike for nearly five weeks over wage increases before approving a new agreement. Nabisco workers were also on strike for weeks in opposition to proposed changes in shift lengths and overtime rules.

About 60,000 workers in Hollywood, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, narrowly avoided a strike after voting on a new contract at the eleventh hour. Roughly 32,000 health care workers at Kaiser Permanente ratified a new contract just hours before a strike was set to take place.

“There’s the labor shortage and the great resignation putting pressure on employers, giving more power to individual workers,” Avgar said. “But there’s also the contagion effect where employees see the successful effects of strikes or unionization pushes elsewhere. There’s a way in which these feed off each other.”

Look ahead

As the new omicron strain spreads quickly across the United States, threatening to draw the pandemic out even longer, it’s unclear what that will mean for workers. Many essential and low-wage workers suffered greatly during the pandemic on an individual level but were able to leverage their position collectively in select cases.

“The labor shortage, the attitude shift on the part of workers in terms of expectations for working conditions, the shift in public attitude for workers unionizing, the pandemic is at the heart of all of those,” Avgar said. “There’s been a slow decline of labor over the past 60 years, but this year feels like there’s been a swing of the decline, like a whiplash.”

Still, even if the perfect storm of conditions continues into 2022, workers will face challenges as they advocate for themselves.

“The examples of success are more numerous than in the past but this is not happening without some of the traditional opposition that companies and management have applied,” he said. “There are still serious structural and embedded forces that make it hard for employees to join a union or collectively bargain in the U.S. It’s not an unobstructed path.”

San Diego sanitation workers continue strike for wages and safe working conditions

Melody Isley
28 December 2021
WSWS.ORG

Sanitation workers at Republic Services in Southern California are continuing a strike for safe workplace conditions and a livable wage. Republic Services is an Arizona-based nonhazardous waste disposal company, with more than 35,000 employees who carry out waste collection for residential areas and commercial businesses across the United States.

In San Diego, some 300 workers remain on strike since December 17. These workers are part of the Teamsters Union Local 542 and take care of trash pickup in Chula Vista, Bonita, Eastlake and some neighborhoods of San Diego County. Their strike came on the heels of a strike by Republic service workers in Orange County, who went out on December 9th. Following discussions between the company and Teamsters Local 396, a tentative agreement was reached on December 16th. Just one day after Local 396 had ended the strike in Orange County, Republic workers in San Diego County began their action.

Teamster sanitation workers picket Republic Services In Chula Vista California 

(Source: Teamsters.org)

Like their fellow workers in Orange County, San Diego Republic workers face low wages, grueling 14-hour shifts, staff shortages, and management harassment. The strike has caused delays in garbage collection during the holiday season, and a great deal of complaints by local politicians and business owners.

Workers are demanding new vehicle and equipment improvements, a livable wage, adequate staffing, reasonable workloads, and improved safety conditions. Workers held a rally on December 26th following continued negotiations by the union and Republic.

The San Diego strike is part of a larger movement of both sanitation workers and the global working class in general. According to the Teamsters, contract negotiations with Republic are currently taking place in eight locations: San Diego; San Francisco; Stockton, California; San Jose, California; Richmond, California; Seattle; Pittsburgh; and New Orleans.

In November, refuse collection workers across the United Kingdom began similar strikes, demanding better wages and safe conditions as COVID-19 spreads unabated among the British working class. All over the world, sanitation workers face unsafe conditions, low pay and overwork, and the unions representing them have enforced contracts with wage increases below the rate of inflation.

In an interview by local news at a rally on Sunday, one Republic driver explained, “We’re ready to stay here for however long it takes,” and that he and his coworkers are prioritizing a fight for workplace safety, especially regarding unsafe and outdated vehicles and equipment, and COVID-19 measures. The worker went on to share his frustration with the fact that their demands had not yet been met, and that his community is being stressed by the cessation of sanitation services.

The media has been quick to highlight frustrated residents and business owners who have been forced to take their own trash to the landfill or are watching it pile up and wash away as heavy rains hit the region.

While the workers show determination to fight for better safety and working conditions, the pro-corporate Teamsters union is working to isolate San Diego workers from their counterparts in Orange County in order to enforce concessions. San Diego sanitation workers have been given details of a new offer that Teamsters Local 542 had agreed to, but many workers indicated they would reject the offer which they deemed “disrespectful,” and made clear their disapproval, demanding that negotiations continue until their demands are met.

Republic Services is the second largest waste management company in the United States. It has also been engaged in frequent struggles with its workers since 2019. But despite encompassing up to 20 percent of Republic’s total workforce, the Teamsters continue to refuse to carry out a national strike against Republic and other waste management companies.

Figures from the local Democratic political establishment have feigned support for the strike, and pickets have been attended by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher, to name a few. Despite these photo ops, they oversee a highly socially unequal city with the fourth highest rates of homelessness and thirteenth highest of poverty in the country. They have also worked to turn the San Diego Convention Center into a jail for immigrant children, supporting the Biden administration’s continual imprisonment of children. These “progressive” Democratic party officials also kept schools open during the pandemic and at every instance prioritize corporate interests over public safety.

This is a local manifestation of the strategy of the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party nationwide to use the services of the union bureaucracy in suppressing the growth of opposition in the working class and enforce substandard contracts. The Teamsters union occupies a central place within this strategy. This summer, it announced it would undertake a national campaign to expand its presence into nonunion Amazon, where it would bring workers the “benefits” of collective bargaining agreements which are as bad as or even worse than what currently exist at the low-wage employer. Warehouse workers at logistics competitor UPS, who are members of the Teamsters, are part-timers who start out at only $13 per hour, under the terms of a contract which the union “ratified” in spite of a majority “no” vote in 2018.

The election of new union president Sean O’Brien this fall, with the supporter of the pseudo-left opposition group Teamsters for a Democratic Union, is an attempt to overcome the discrediting of the Teamsters by decades of sellouts and its notorious thuggishness. But O’Brien is himself a former ally of his predecessor, James Hoffa Jr., and is widely hated for his use of threats of physical violence against his opponents. O’Brien was elected amid the lowest voter turnout since the union switched to direct election of its top officers in the early 1990s.

The struggles of waste management workers in Southern California cannot be left in the hands of the Teamsters, which functions as an agency of management. Instead, waste management workers must begin building their own independent rank-and-file committees, where workers can fight for their own interests, untethered from the corporatist relations between the trade unions and the corporations.