North America

Workers, not politicians, will end this war
Build Our Solidarity, Not Their Elections

According to a press release issued by TTEC, Point Fortin and Couva Service Centres remained closed while Scarborough centre was manned by a small number of employees. Distribution areas were also affected by high absenteeism levels as most field workers did not report for work, stated the release.

The workers had been organising against the interference of the Puebla state government by way of the FROC-CROC union’s presence in the Grupo Navarra factory, which makes clothes for Abercombie & Fitch, Gap, Levi and Calvin Klein, amongst others. FROC-CROC is affiliated to the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institutional) political party, which runs the state government.

The workers' union STUNAM (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) had hoped for a 15% increase, in line with recent steep rises in the cost of living, especially with regard to food and gas.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

"We're going to try to get back to work tomorrow morning and bite the bullet on this until we can get a new union certification," said Andre LaGrand, a spokesman for the striking drivers.

Following a heady 18 months of diverse and popular struggles up down the country, the Mexican state is using familiar tactics to reassert itself as the country’s main authority.

Workers are protesting against the two-tier pension system that the company, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, is trying to impose on new workers. Workers had already accepted a freeze on benefits to allow the company to make up pension shortfalls.

The workers are also demanding a salary increase and there are further non-financial demands.

Mollie Steimer: An Anarchist Life
By Paul Avrich

It's still a matter of conjecture what convinced “Rube” Munson and the WCU there was going to be a national rebellion.

I'd like to thank the work of Oklahoma grass-roots historians and journalists for finding and publishing period newspaper accounts

1919 Steel Strike
October 3, 1919

The Steel Strike Still Holds Public Attention

October 10, 1919

The Steel Strike is Still On
With Few if Any Changes

Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers in northern Alberta, Canada Wildcatted on Monday September 24th. Mail delivery was cut off in Stony Plain, Spruce Grove, Nisku, Edson, Hinton and Delton Depot in Edmonton. The strike action was in response to Canada Post offering a select group of employees at two depots in Alberta a 35% raise while bypassing the vast majority of Rural and Suburban Workers.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said the union launched the strike after "one-sided negotiations" failed to reach an agreement.

"It was going to be General Motors' way at the expense of the workers," Gettelfinger said. "The company walked right up to the deadline like they really didn't care."

The One Big Union was founded a mere two months before it was baptized by the Winnipeg General Strike. The founding Convention was held in the Calgary Labour Temple (which still stands today, though it has been converted into a Chinese Restaurant).

In May of 1919 a heat wave crossed the province. Edmonton had reached temperatures of 85 degrees. Like the heat wave a mood of union militancy was in the air across Alberta, indeed across Western Canada. A strike wave would soon erupt sweeping the West like a prairie fire.

The story of the Battle of Ballantyne Pier can be traced back to 1912 when the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), began organising amongst waterfront workers in Canada, and alongside the Lumber Handlers’ Union in Vancouver.

The region's 4000 carpenters are asking for a rise equal to that earned by metal-workers earlier in the summer. According to Martyn Piper of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ) some 20 issues have been resolved during negotiations and that the only disagreement is over a wage increase.

"There's only so much you can do to people. We can't take it any more," said D.O. Nwajei of the Atlanta Taxi Cab Association Inc., whose membership tops 1,500. "We've been pushed to the wall." The cabbies said they were frustrated with working conditions and what some labelled police harassment.

Members of the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores en Educación (National Union of Education Workers) are pointing the finger at their local union bosses following an attack on the worker-occupied union headquarters in Cuidad Juárez in Mexico in which "punches were thrown" and equipment was damaged.

Cabbies opposed to plans to install credit card and video devices in cabs across the city’s fleet are planning to stage a two-day stoppage. The hi-tech video screens, which the city authorities want to have installed in every yellow cab, will allow passengers to watch TV, make payments with credit cards and watch the progress of their cab journey via a global satellite link.

Ending a war: Inventing a movement: Mayday 1971
Kauffman, L A