On the picket line

Two more UAW locals strike GM

Autoworkers in UAW Local 31 in Fairfax, Kan., who make one of General Motors’ most popular new vehicles, the Chevrolet Malibu, went on strike May 5. The 2,700 members are demanding that GM not suspend seniority rules for various job assignments. Given that sales of the Malibu are up 32 percent over the same time period last year, the longer the strike continues, the more GM suffers. Another strike, by 1,800-member Local 602 in Lansing, Mich., has been going on since April 17. There, the issues are also work rules as well as grievance procedures. These two locals join nearly 30 GM plants currently closed or partly shut due to the months-long strike at GM parts supplier American Axle.

Truckers stage May Day actions

Truckers called for a coast-to-coast slowdown on May Day to protest the all-time high of $4.20 a gallon for diesel fuel. It now costs independent truckers $525 to fill an average 125-gallon tank. The truckers called on all motorists to join their protest against high fuel prices by driving five miles below the speed limit. Truckers at New Jersey ports staged a two-day strike beginning on April 30 to protest high fuel and energy prices and to support the longshore workers on the West Coast, who struck for eight hours on May Day against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The truckers started their job action with a morning rally at the Vince Lombardi Truck Stop at Exit 18 on the New Jersey Turnpike. (E-mails from Labor Exchange, May 1)

Part-timers unionize at Michigan college

Part-time professors at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., approved forming a union by mail-in vote on May 7. A group representing the nearly 600 adjunct faculty members began organizing the Adjunct Faculty Organization, an affiliate of the Michigan branch of the Federation of Teachers, more than a year ago. This win follows the highly favorable April 30 contract negotiated by part-timers at Wayne State University. (Detroit News, May 8)

Letter Carriers support moratorium

Branch 214 of the Letter Carriers union, which represents 2,500 workers in 11 cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, voted unanimously on May 7 for a resolution calling for a moratorium on home foreclosures, utility shut-offs and evictions. Citing the fact that nearly 10 percent of the homes of U.S. workers could be foreclosed this year, the resolution noted that a bill calling for a two-year moratorium on foreclosures was recently introduced in the Michigan State Senate. This is the first union resolution from outside of Michigan to support the call for such a moratorium. (union e-mail, May 10)

Discrimination suit against Bloomberg

Fifty-four women recently joined a class-action lawsuit filed against Bloomberg, the financial services and media company founded by New York City’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The lawsuit, initiated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last September with only three complainants, charges that the women were demoted or their pay cut after becoming pregnant and taking maternity leave. The commission is reaching out to 478 women who took maternity leave beginning in 2002. (New York Times, May 2)

Actors end contract talks—for now

Representatives of the Screen Actors Guild on May 6 ended three weeks of contract talks with Hollywood production companies after no agreement was reached. Substantial issues remain involving compensation for programming delivered by new electronic media. It seems the producers offered a new-media package different from what the Writers Guild won in February, and SAG wants to make it better for actors. The following day the producers began talks with a smaller actors’ union whose contract also expires on June 30. (New York Times, May 7)

Saluting Rosie the Riveter

If workers are the unsung heroes of capitalist society, then women workers are the invisible heroes. But there is at least one memorial to women workers in this country, and it’s because of a war. In 2000 the “Rosie the Riveter Memorial: Honoring American Women’s Labor During WWII” was opened at the site of the former Kaiser Shipyard No. 2 in Richmond, Calif. Designed by visual artist Susan Schwartzenberg and landscape architect/environmental sculptor Cheryl Barton, the memorial commemorates the 18 million women of all races who worked in war industries and support services—shipyards, aircraft factories, steel mills, foundries, hospitals and daycare centers—during World War II. When the troops returned, most of the women were eased out of their jobs, and services like daycare were discontinued—until the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s won the revival of some subsidized programs. It’s time to fight for them all over again.