On the picket line

SF hospital strikers attacked

Several striking caregivers, all women, were physically assaulted by 70 California Pacific Medical Center “security” guards after a candlelight vigil at the hospital on Oct. 15. Dietary aide Lorenna Hernandez was hospitalized with abdominal injuries after being kicked to the ground by CPMC’s military-trained security. Several other caregivers filed police reports after being kicked and punched.

“The security guards were out of control. I was on the picket line and security starting shoving us off the sidewalk,” said Hernandez. “I fell to the ground and one of the guards kept kicking me in the stomach. Everyone was yelling at him to stop and trying to get him off me.”

Aide Maria Salina was also roughed up. “We were just walking on the picket line and security started running toward us,” said Salina. “They told us we needed to get off the sidewalk, but it is our legal right. Besides, there was fast traffic in the street. They started pushing us, shoving me hard in my shoulder and neck.”

The workers are represented by the Services Employees union. An Oct. 16 press release from union noted that CPMC had hired the temporary security guards to intimidate the striking workers. Nursing assistants, licensed vocational nurses and other hospital caregivers, mostly women, had no alternative but to go on strike after CPMC’s parent company, Sutter Health Plan, refused to accept a federal mediator’s compromise. One of the primary issues: higher staffing levels so the workers can provide adequate patient care.

Since the strike began 31 days ago, guards have shoved, spit on, sexually harassed and threatened the strikers.

These hired strikebreakers were supplied by Steele Foundation, an expensive international security firm that sends private armed guards to hot spots around the world. In February 2004, for example, Steele guards hired to protect President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti allowed the U.S. Embassy to kidnap him and force him out of the country.

Sprint workers strike in four states

Nearly a thousand workers at local Sprint telephone operations in Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina and Indiana hit the bricks on Oct. 9 to protest company demands for massive contract concessions.

In a show of solidarity, more than 100 members of 10 Communication Workers locals in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois held a noontime rally in Lawrenceburg, Ind., on Oct. 13 to demand a fair contract for their CWA sisters and brothers.

“This is the most profitable segment of the entire company, yet Sprint is demanding contract concessions that amount to an attack on our paychecks, our families’ health security, our job conditions and our very future with the company,” said Jimmy Gurganus, a CWA vice president.

Sprint wants to eliminate the cap on employee contributions to health premiums, which means workers could end up paying 100 percent of their health care costs. The company also wants to get rid of current limits on transferring jobs to outside contractors—an obvious move to destroy the union. Sprint also wants to eliminate its contribution to workers’ 401(k) retirement savings plans, slash both long- and short-term disability benefits, eliminate overtime pay for work on Sunday, weaken workers’ seniority rights and cut back on paid leave for vacations, holidays and sick leave.

No wonder the workers are on strike!

Colchester, Vt., teachers walk out

Teachers in Colchester, Vt., have opted to staff picket lines, rather than classrooms, since Oct. 10. The first nego tiating session since the strike began is scheduled for Oct. 18. The major issues are pay and health benefits.

According to the Colchester Education Association, which represents the teachers, base pay for teachers in Colchester is the lowest in Chittenden County, and the teachers pay more for health insurance than other teachers in the county.

The teachers, who number 180 and who voted 159 to 6 to strike, want a 5 percent raise in each of the next three years and a reduction in health premium payments to 10 percent, which is what teachers in surrounding districts pay. The school board is offering a 3.25 percent raise next year and continuation of 20 percent premiums with a deductible of $1,000 to $3,000.

The teachers have received widespread community support, including from students. “It should have never come to this,” said high school senior Tristan Brosnan, who joined the picket line on Oct. 10. “The union was right in saying they shouldn’t be pushed any further. What are the priorities in our society? Having fair wages for teachers or not?”

Bush attack on gov’t unions fails

Despite pressure from the Bush administration that had appointed her, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled on Oct. 7 that she would not narrow her Aug. 12 ruling blocking new personnel rules at the Department of Homeland Security. A coalition of four unions representing 160,000 government workers at DHS filed a motion opposing the new rules because they would have slashed the workers’ collective bargaining and workplace rights and ended civil service pay scales.

Even before the October ruling, the Bush administration boasted that it wanted to impose similar workplace rules on the entire federal workforce. Its next target was 750,000 workers at the Defense Department.