Foundry Workers Strike to Save Their Healthcare
by David Bacon
In These Times
Berkeley, Calif.—A strike of more than 450 workers in one of the largest foundries on the west coast brought production to a halt Sunday night, at Pacific Steel Castings. The work stoppage, which began at midnight, has continued with round-the-clock picketing at the factory gates in West Berkeley.
Local 164B of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers International Union (GMP) has been negotiating a new labor agreement at Pacific Steel for several months. The old agreement expired on Sunday night.
The strike was caused by demands from the company's owners for concessions and takeaway proposals in contract negotiations. Those include:
■ requiring workers to pay at least 20% of the cost of their medical insurance, amounting to about $300 per month per employee.
■ a wage freeze for the first two years of the agreement, and tiny raises after that.
■ eliminating the ability of workers to use their seniority to bid for overtime, allowing criteria including speedup, discrimination and favoritism.
"All eight other foundries in the Bay Area have agreed to a fair contract," said Ignacio De La Fuente, GMP international vice-president. "Workers at Pacific Steel haven't had a raise in the last two years, in order to help the company pay for increases in health plan costs. Pacific Steel is now alone among the rest in trying to make its workers give back $300 a month."
The $300/month would mean an approximately 10 percent cut in wages for most workers at the foundry.
Joel Soto, a member of the union's negotiating committee, has worked eight years at Pacific Steel, and has a wife, 2-year-old child and another on the way. Soto said, "We've been trying to save money for a house. If we have to give up $300 a month, we'll have to continue renting. My wife and I both support our parents, and that $300 cut is what we're able to give them now that they're old. And with my wife pregnant, we can't do without that medical care."
Benito Navarro has 10 years at the foundry, and a wife and son. "That $300 is what I pay for my car to get to work. I'm the only one in my family working, so if we don't have that money, I'll have to give up the car. But I'd rather eat than drive."
On both Monday and Tuesday dozens of Berkeley police, with helmets and face shields, shoved and hit strikers as they attempted to help the company bring trucks full of castings out of its struck facility. On Tuesday, one striker, Norma Garcia, who is seven months pregnant, was struck in the abdomen and taken to a hospital.
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Showing posts with label Healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healthcare. Show all posts
Move On: Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women
(From Move On -- sources are at the end of the list.)
Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women
1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.
2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."
3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)
4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.
5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.
6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.
7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.
8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.
9) Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.
10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).
Sources:
1. "'Forcible Rape' Language Remains In Bill To Restrict Abortion Funding," The Huffington Post, February 9, 2011
"Extreme Abortion Coverage Ban Introduced," Center for American Progress, January 20, 2011
2. "Georgia State Lawmaker Seeks To Redefine Rape Victims As 'Accusers,'" The Huffington Post, February 4, 2011
3. "South Dakota bill would legalize killing abortion doctors," Salon, February 15, 2011
4. "House GOP Proposes Cuts to Scores of Sacred Cows," National Journal, February 9, 2011
5. "New GOP Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Let Women Die Instead Of Having An Abortion," Talking Points Memo, February 4, 2011
6. "Republican Officials Cut Head Start Funding, Saying Women Should be Married and Home with Kids," Think Progress, February 16, 2011
7. "Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli," The New Republic, Feburary 12, 2011
8. "House GOP spending cuts will devastate women, families and economy," The Hill, February 16, 2011
9. "House passes measure stripping Planned Parenthood funding," MSNBC, February 18,2011
"GOP Spending Plan: X-ing Out Title X Family Planning Funds," Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2011
10. Ibid.
"Birth Control for Horses, Not for Women," Blog for Choice, February 17, 2011
Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women
1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.
2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."
3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)
4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.
5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.
6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.
7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.
8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.
9) Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.
10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).
Sources:
1. "'Forcible Rape' Language Remains In Bill To Restrict Abortion Funding," The Huffington Post, February 9, 2011
"Extreme Abortion Coverage Ban Introduced," Center for American Progress, January 20, 2011
2. "Georgia State Lawmaker Seeks To Redefine Rape Victims As 'Accusers,'" The Huffington Post, February 4, 2011
3. "South Dakota bill would legalize killing abortion doctors," Salon, February 15, 2011
4. "House GOP Proposes Cuts to Scores of Sacred Cows," National Journal, February 9, 2011
5. "New GOP Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Let Women Die Instead Of Having An Abortion," Talking Points Memo, February 4, 2011
6. "Republican Officials Cut Head Start Funding, Saying Women Should be Married and Home with Kids," Think Progress, February 16, 2011
7. "Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli," The New Republic, Feburary 12, 2011
8. "House GOP spending cuts will devastate women, families and economy," The Hill, February 16, 2011
9. "House passes measure stripping Planned Parenthood funding," MSNBC, February 18,2011
"GOP Spending Plan: X-ing Out Title X Family Planning Funds," Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2011
10. Ibid.
"Birth Control for Horses, Not for Women," Blog for Choice, February 17, 2011
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Stephanie Taylor: What Wisconsin's governor is really threatening
What Wisconsin's governor is really threatening: When Scott Walker talks of unleashing the National Guard on public employees, he conjures an ugly history
By Stephanie Taylor
Salon
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has declared war on state workers, almost literally.
First, he proposed a state budget that would cut retirement and healthcare for workers like teachers and nurses, and strip away nearly all of their collective bargaining rights. But even more significantly, he announced last Friday that he had alerted the National Guard to be ready for state workers to strike or protest, an unprecedented step in modern times.
This would be the first time in nearly 80 years that the National Guard would be used to break a strike by Wisconsin workers, and the first time in over 40 years that the National Guard would be used against public workers anywhere in the country. The last time was the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, just before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
The outrage was immediate across labor message boards, Twitter and Facebook pages. Over the last two days, tens of thousands have protested in front of the capitol building in Madison in defiance of the governor, some even camping overnight.
To understand the visceral, emotional nature of this outcry, you have to understand the history of the National Guard and the labor movement -- and what this means for the relationship between labor and the state today.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, governors often mobilized the National Guard during strikes. Sometimes the Guard was genuinely neutral, assigned to buffer the dangerous zone between strikers and their employers. Other times, the Guard was explicitly charged with breaking the strike. During these instances, violence often erupted between strikers and soldiers with terrible, bloody results.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
By Stephanie Taylor
Salon
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has declared war on state workers, almost literally.
First, he proposed a state budget that would cut retirement and healthcare for workers like teachers and nurses, and strip away nearly all of their collective bargaining rights. But even more significantly, he announced last Friday that he had alerted the National Guard to be ready for state workers to strike or protest, an unprecedented step in modern times.
This would be the first time in nearly 80 years that the National Guard would be used to break a strike by Wisconsin workers, and the first time in over 40 years that the National Guard would be used against public workers anywhere in the country. The last time was the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, just before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
The outrage was immediate across labor message boards, Twitter and Facebook pages. Over the last two days, tens of thousands have protested in front of the capitol building in Madison in defiance of the governor, some even camping overnight.
To understand the visceral, emotional nature of this outcry, you have to understand the history of the National Guard and the labor movement -- and what this means for the relationship between labor and the state today.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, governors often mobilized the National Guard during strikes. Sometimes the Guard was genuinely neutral, assigned to buffer the dangerous zone between strikers and their employers. Other times, the Guard was explicitly charged with breaking the strike. During these instances, violence often erupted between strikers and soldiers with terrible, bloody results.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
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