On the picket line

Teachers ‘sick’ of pay cuts

DETROIT - About 1,725 teachers and 345 long-term substitutes in the Detroit public school system called in sick on March 22, leading to the cancellation of classes for about 38,000 students at 54 schools. That represents more than a quarter of the system’s teaching staff.

The teachers were protesting the fact that they had received the first of five reduced paychecks on March 21, while principals are getting raises ranging from 4.7 to 10.6 percent.

The reduced paychecks were part of the settlement reached August 2005 to avert a strike. The school district had demanded an 11 percent pay cut. Instead, the teachers agreed to a one-year contract that would “loan” the district five days’ pay, to be paid back in 2007, and freeze five sick days. Only recently did the teachers learn of the raises for principals. The school system will save $15 million—$3 million for each of the five days.

President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers Janna Garrison defended the sick-out. “You do not ask someone to take a cut and give others a raise,” she told the Detroit Free Press. (March 23)

The teachers have not received a cost-of-living increase in more than three years. Their contract expires June 30, and negotiations started in March.

Student sit-in aids workers’ strike

MIAMI - On March 28 students from STAND (Students Toward A New Democracy) at the University of Miami in Florida camped out for 13 hours in the administration office. They demanded that the University of Miami allow 900 service workers, who have been striking since March 1, to be represented by Local 11 of SEIU. There was also civil disobedience by clergy, workers and community supporters outside the building.

The students’ solidarity was decisive. The next day University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who before the strike denied any responsibility for the service workers employed through Unicco Service Co., finally demanded all parties come to the negotiating table by March 31.

Although the janitors, housekeepers, food servers and gardeners—predominantly immigrants from the Caribbean and South America—won wage hikes and health benefits in mid-March, they continued the strike to protest Unicco’s labor law violations.

Delta Comair flight attendants vote to strike

Ninety-three percent of Delta Comair flight attendants voted on March 24 to authorize a strike. Delta, which filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 14, is demanding nearly 30 percent pay cuts, amounting to nearly $11,000 annually. That would be catastrophic for the workers who currently average $28,000.

But that’s not all. The cuts come on top of huge increases in health care costs that Comair implemented last year in violation
of the flight attendants’ contract.

The workers asked members of Delta’s Sky Miles frequent flyer club to sign petitions protesting the draconian pay cuts on April 3-5 at airports in Cincinnati, New York and Orlando. To sign the petition, go to www.teamsterstakeaction.org/campaign/delta/.

Building workers nix pay freeze

NYC - On March 22, workers at 3,500 apartment buildings in New York City rejected the owners’ demand for a one-year pay freeze and payment of 15 percent of their health care premiums. The 28,000 doormen, janitors and other service workers represented by SEIU Local 32 BJ have threatened to strike on April 21.

Mich. to increase minimum wage

MICHIGAN - Pushed by a grassroots petition drive, the Michigan legislature voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $6.95 an hour in October, $7.15 in July 2006 and $7.40 in July 2008. It has joined 17 states and the District of Columbia in setting minimum wages higher than the federal minimum of $5.15.

At least $8.88 an hour is needed to keep up with inflation, reported a Feb. 23 AFL-CIO press release. For example, one person working full-time for $5.15 a year makes $10,712. That’s $5,378 below the poverty line of $16,090 for a family of three. Two minimum-wage workers would have to work 132 hours a week, or 3.3 full-time minimum wage jobs, just to make ends meet.

But that’s only part of the story. Here’s the criminal part. While the federal hourly minimum has been stuck at $5.15 for the past nine years, Congress members voted themselves eight pay hikes—or $31,600—during the same period. They make on average $162,000 a year. That sort of obscene disparity should be outlawed.