On the picket line

Building workers win big

Workers in 3,000 of New York City’s most expensive residential buildings stood together against some of the city’s biggest real estate moguls and voted to strike when their contract expired on April 21. And the real estate barons, who had demanded huge givebacks, were forced to back down in the face of unity.

Here’s how building worker Milton Vera assessed the victory of the 28,000 workers in SEIU Local 32BJ: “From the get-go the union was up-front in fighting management’s demands for a wage freeze and givebacks on health care and pensions. The demonstration on April 18 was the biggest 32BJ had held in years. Management was playing hard ball, but 32BJ stuck together. Management could see we were dug in, and we weren’t about to give in. That’s why we won such a good contract.”

Rather than a wage freeze in the first year of the contract, door attendants, supers, porters and other service workers will get a $10-a-week raise in October and an increase of 8.5 percent over the four-year contract. The workers’ health care continues to be paid 100 percent by the bosses and their co-pays remain the same. Rather than have their pensions frozen, the workers will continue to receive a weekly contribution of $10. This victory shows what’s possible when workers flex their muscles and demand what’s rightfully theirs.

Hunger strike gets support

Support is growing for service workers at the University of Miami, mostly immigrants, who since March 1 have been on strike against Unicco for a union contract and an end to labor violations. They escalated the struggle when several members started a hunger strike on April 4. Members of Students Toward a New Democracy (STAND) joined the water-only fast on April 14. And service workers at Nova Southeast University in nearby Davie, Fla., also went on strike against Unicco on April 10.

On April 11, the day after immigrant workers held massive rallies all over the country, immigrant workers in Boston, also employed by Boston-based Unicco, held a one-day fast and rally in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Miami.

Charles Steele Jr., national president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, went to Miami to show solidarity with the Rev. James Bush III, who has been organizing community activities in support of the service workers.

On April 19, STAND members took over the admissions office to demand that the university support the workers’ demand for union representation by SEIU Local 11.

On April 21, SEIU President Andy Stern and SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina joined the hunger strike for three days in support of the right of the workers to form a union.

Though University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who was secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration, has asked SEIU and Unicco representatives to continue to negotiate, STAND and SEIU say that’s not enough. They want Shalala to tell Unicco to stop violating the law and recognize the union’s card check, which shows that 67 percent of the workers want to be represented by SEIU. Call Shalala at (305) 284-5155 to demand that the university recognize the union.

Teachers call to end war

The California Federation of Teachers passed a strongly worded resolution on March 26 calling for an end to the war in Iraq. It stated that the war was draining sorely needed funds from education and other vital human services and was the “overriding” issue affecting the conditions of teachers and students in the U.S. today.

The resolution stated that “California’s share of the cost of the war (more than $31 billion) alone could have funded nearly 550,000 new public school teachers for one year.” It ended with a call “to work for a reordering of national political and economic priorities toward peace, economic and racial justice, labor rights, true security and human needs.” n

Why no jobless pay for mechanics?

In a bizarre twist, the Minnesota senate has voted to give unemployment benefits to airline cleaners and custodians but not to mechanics in the same union, Aircraft Mechanics Local 33. The local has been on strike against Northwest Airlines since last Aug. 20, when it refused to sign a takeback contract that would have totally gutted the union.

AMFA Assistant National Director Steve MacFarlane denounced these divide-and-conquer tactics in an April 12 press release: “To claim that benefits cannot be granted unless picketing ceases begs the question of how AMFA cleaners and custodians, in the same state and the same strike, received these benefits. Blackmailing striking workers to give up their right to picket under federal law to receive benefits that have already been granted to other members of the same strike is a clear signal that the State would rather harm its own citizens than risk offending Northwest Airlines. Minnesota is giving the appearance it has the best government that money can buy.”