| Solidaridad Edicion #7 Disponible Aqui
By Wobbly City 
August 27, 2008
In English below.
Solidaridad Edicion #7 Disponible Aqui
Edición 2, Volumen 2
Con:
* 400 Camioneros de Stockton, California declaran una huelga a la industria
* España: ¿que está pasando en Starbucks? una trabajadora afiliada a CNT Sevilla es despedida
* Foro sobre organización industrial con el IWW en Chile
* Barrick Gold en Pascua Lama, Chile
Solidaridad #7 en PDF
Para más informaciones: solidaridad AT iww.org o www.iww.org/es.
_ _ _ _ _
Solidaridad Issue #7 Out Now
Solidaridad is the Spanish language newsletter of the IWW.
Edition 2, Volume 2
With:
* 400 Truckers in Stockton, California strike the industry
* Spain: 'What's going on in Starbucks?' CNT member fired
* Forum on industrial organizing with the IWW in Chile
* Barrick Gold in Pascua Lama, Chile
Solidaridad #7 in PDF
For more information: solidaridad AT iww.org or www.iww.org/es.
|
Striking Nursing Home Workers Return to Work
By Steven Greenhouse, New York Times 
In May, striking workers protested outside the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation and Care Center in the Bronx. (Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times)
August 22, 2008
From The New York Times Blog:
After six months on strike, 220 workers at one of the largest nursing homes in the Bronx were feeling relieved, delighted but still somewhat angry when they began returning to work on Thursday morning.
The employees of the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation and Care Center returned to work largely because a federal judge issued an injunction last week ordering the nursing home to resume paying the workers’ health insurance premiums. The home’s decision to stop paying those premiums caused the workers to walk out on Feb. 20.
“It feels real good going back to work,” said Fay Whitter, who has worked as a certified nursing assistant at Kingsbridge for six years. “At first the mood was tense — we from the 5 a.m. shift didn’t go back in until 8:30.”
Because the strike lasted so long, the nursing home, at 3400 Cannon Place in the west Bronx, made the employees go through a new orientation. The strikers received messages of support not just from dozens of New York politicians, but also from Senator Barack Obama, who once spoke to the strikers via conference call.
Last week Judge Denise L. Cote of Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that Kingsbridge Heights had violated the law not only by stopping its health insurance payments, but also by spying on workers, threatening to fire them if they went on strike and giving them bonuses as an incentive to quit their union, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East.
After Judge Cote issued her injunction, Kingsbridge Heights asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to stay her injunction. But the appeals court declined to do so. As part of the injunction, Judge Cote ordered the nursing home to reinstate the strikers if the union made an unconditional offer to return to work — which the union quickly did.
John T. McCann, a lawyer for the nursing home, said it had no comment about the strikers’ return to work. Ms. Whitter said she was surprised that when the nursing home’s owner, Helen Sieger, spoke to the returning workers, she was not at all conciliatory. “She came out very angry,” Ms. Whitter said. “She said, I want you to know I will appeal the judge’s decision and I will win.”
Ms Sieger was arrested on Aug. 8 on felony charges, accused of not paying her employees’ workers compensation insurance for nearly a year. Ms. Sieger, who faces up to four years in prison, pleaded not guilty and was released on $150,000 bond.
Soon after the nursing home stopped paying health insurance premiums, the workers lost their health coverage. Without such insurance, Ms. Whitter ran up tens of thousands of dollars for tests and examinations because she was suspected of having breast cancer. “I have bills that will make your head swell,” she said.
Jacqueline Codwell, a certified nursing assistant for three years, was glad to be back at work. “I was nervous at first about going back,” she said. “But when I came and I see all my co-workers looking so nice, it built up my confidence.”
The workers said their return was somewhat solemn because Thursday was the birthday of a striker, Audrey Smith-Campbell, who died in May after working as a nursing assistant at the home for 29 years. After her health coverage was cut off, Ms. Smith-Campbell stopped paying $600 a month for her asthma medication. She died of cardiac arrest soon after suffering an asthma attack.
“Remembering her, makes us feel even stronger going back in,” Ms. Codwell said. “I didn’t do this fight for myself,” she continued. “It was hard to be out for six months, but I felt proud. The rain and heat made it hard. I did this for my daughter so she could see that when something you do is right, stand up and don’t give up.”
|
IWW Rally Marks Bitter Anniversary
By David Scharfenberg, The Providence Journal 
Photo by Bill Murphy of The Providence Journal
August 12, 2008
From The Providence Journal
PROVIDENCE — A year after a confrontation with police officers in North Providence left her with severe leg injuries, union organizer Alexandra Svoboda arrived at a rally yesterday with a cane, a knee brace and a message of defiance.
“This is the true spirit of resistance,” she said. “This is people saying, ‘no.’ ”
Svoboda, secretary of the Providence branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, was among a group of protesters who clashed with the police Aug. 11, 2007, while marching on Jacky’s Galaxie, a pan-Asian restaurant on Mineral Spring Avenue.
Union members were targeting Jacky’s because the eatery purchased rice and takeout containers from Dragon Land Trading, a restaurant supply company in Queens, N.Y., with a reputation for treating its employees poorly.
As the protesters marched toward the restaurant, a group of North Providence officers approached and directed them to move to the side of the road because they were obstructing traffic.
The police said Svoboda was combative, swinging at police officers with a set of drumsticks she had used to bang on a bucket hanging around her neck.
The union said officers “tackled and brutalized” the protester without provocation.
Whatever the sequence of events, Svoboda wound up with severe injuries –– a torn artery in the left knee, a fractured tibia and fibia, and torn ligaments and nerve damage from the knee down, according to a union statement.
Svoboda, then 22, underwent four surgeries in the weeks immediately following the clash. She said yesterday that she will meet with her doctor in the coming days to discuss a fifth surgery.
But surgery is not the only concern for Svoboda.
She also faces two misdemeanor charges of simple assault, a charge of resisting arrest and a charge of disorderly conduct.
Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch has appointed a special prosecutor to handle the Svoboda case while his office looks into allegations that the North Providence police used excessive force.
Jason Friedmutter, an IWW organizer, also faces a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a police officer.
Kin Wah “Jacky” Ko, owner of Jacky’s Galaxie restaurants in North Providence, Bristol and Cumberland, has long maintained that the IWW protest was not justified.
He said he stopped purchasing supplies from Dragon Land weeks before the protest, when he became aware of the distributor’s alleged penchant for low wages.
IWW organizers countered that Ko failed to show adequate proof that he had cut ties with Dragon Land in the run-up to the march.
Friedmutter said yesterday that the restaurant owner did provide appropriate documentation after the protest.
John Cronan Jr., a New York City-based IWW organizer, said pressure on Jacky’s and other East Coast restaurants that once bought supplies from Dragon Land put the distributor, formerly known as HWH, out of business.
Cronan said the union is still pursuing the owners of Dragon Land for payment of back wages to former employees.
But he said the IWW is having trouble identifying the company’s assets.
New York State corporation records list a Queens-based Dragon Land Realty.
But it was unclear yesterday if the company had any ties to the food distributor.
The rally yesterday at Lonigan Memorial Park, off Atwells Avenue, attracted about 50 people dressed in red and black.
A series of union organizers spoke alongside a blown-up photograph of Svoboda –– lying on the ground with a mangled leg on the day of the protest.
Speakers tore into the police for engaging in “brutality.”
The North Providence police did not return calls for comment yesterday.
But town officials have defended the Police Department’s approach in the past.
They have maintained that protesters, who outnumbered police, repeatedly declined to follow police directives that day.
And they have claimed Svoboda pushed one officer and swung the drumsticks at others when they tried to arrest her.
They said police took her down out of concern for their own safety.
Ko, for his part, said yesterday that the union had been “unfair” in targeting his chain of restaurants.
But he added that he has stopped pursuing a defamation lawsuit against the IWW. And he said he hoped to put last year’s events behind him.
dscharfe@projo.com
|
Wal-Mart union relations heads to Canada top court
By Randall Palmer, Reuters 
August 07, 2008
From Reuters
OTTAWA, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Canada's Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to hear a challenge by workers of Wal-Mart Inc's (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) 2005 decision to close a store in Quebec that had been the first in North America to obtain union certification.
The former employees charged they had unfairly lost their jobs because of their union activities. Wal-Mart's Canadian subsidiary insisted that they had lost their jobs for the "good and sufficient reason" of the closure of the Jonquiere store.
The Supreme Court did not give reasons for hearing the case or say when it will do so. It will likely take months and possibly a year for a decision to be handed down. (Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Jeffrey Jones)
|
|
