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On the picket line

CBS News workers vote to strike

CBS News writers, producers, editors, artists and assistants for both radio and TV in national and four local markets voted to strike on Nov. 19. The 500 members of the Writers Guild of America have been working without a contract since April 2005.

CBS wants to institute a two-tier pay scale, offering the network TV and radio workers a three percent raise while offering the local radio workers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington only a two percent raise. Calling the two-tier system unfair, Michael Winship, president of WGA, East, told the New York Times, “This is a wakeup call to CBS News management. We’re saying that we are really at the end of our rope.” (Nov. 20)

Already 12,000 members of WGA are on strike. They’ve been walking picket lines in Hollywood and New York for more than two weeks.

Calif. laundry workers call strike

On strike since Sept. 12, hundreds of laundry workers from Los Angeles to San Diego have charged Prudential Overall Supply with unfair labor practices. The workers opted to walk in protest of Prudential’s intimidation, harassment and threats after they organized to join UNITE HERE.

Prudential doesn’t seem to care who it abuses in California. The company is being sued for $1.82 million in damages by the city of San Diego for “unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices” because it violated the city’s living wage laws. The city of Oakland found Prudential in violation of its living wage law and ordered Prudential to pay $120,000 in back wages and benefits. Though Prudential signed a Ventura County laundry contract in July, it dropped it in October after it was informed that it would have to pay the workers a living wage.

Last spring a horrible chlorine gas accident at Prudential’s Vista facility hospitalized 21 workers and caused respiratory problems, vomiting and dizziness among the entire workforce, which had to be evacuated. Obviously Prudential puts its profits before the workers’ welfare. On with the strike!

ILCA reports from News Orleans

The International Labor Communications Association, organized in 1955 to promote the labor press, held its Oct. 18-20 convention in New Orleans. More than 70 members, working in 17 teams, fanned out all over the city to research stories and make multimedia presentations about how people continue to struggle with the effects of the 2005 Katrina disaster. Called the New Orleans Labor Media Project, the materials are posted on www.neworleanslabormedia.org.

The introduction to the site reads: “Feel free to use anything you find as long as you credit the author properly as well as this website. We would also like to know where and how you are using [the materials]. Our goal and our work is to demonstrate the collective power of labor’s voice.”

Help FedEx Ground workers organize

FedEx Ground workers are fed up with the company’s threats, interrogation, bribery and other illegal actions, which are all part of its campaign to harass, isolate and fire union supporters. A recent report by the National Labor Relations Board—which is no friend to labor—detailed these illegal actions and issued a complaint against the company. To sign a petition supporting the workers’ right to union representation, go to www.fedupwithfedex.org.