>the rest.
>
>This is definitely not an anti-capitalist development.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00ed01bfb74c$43ba3ee0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Police attack youth as May Day march demands immigrant rights
>Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 07:14:36 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>POLICE ATACK YOUTH AS MAY DAY MARCH
>DEMANDS IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
>
>Over 600 people joined an immigrant workers' protest in
>New York May 1. They marched from Union Square to the
>Federal Building in lower Manhattan, calling for an
>immediate amnesty for all undocumented workers. Signs and
>banners demanded better pay and working conditions for
>immigrants.
>
>Many marchers carried signs saying "Workers of the World
>Unite"--the slogan from the Communist Manifesto.
>
>At Union Square police in riot gear waded into the
>protesters. They arrested 19 youths and dragged them into a
>van. According to Reuters news service, "The arrests in New
>York were made after police said the demonstrators had
>violated a state law against obscuring one's face during a
>demonstration," a law originally meant to be used against
>the Ku Klux Klan.
>
>"Police at the scene also said the action was prompted by
>the fact that some of the demonstrators were dressed in
>garb similar to that worn by activists at tumultuous World
>Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle."
>
>Youths were the target of police assault at May Day
>demonstrations in Chicago and Portland, Ore. A full report
>on national and international May Day actions will appear
>in the next issue of Workers World.
>
>--Greg Butterfield
>
>
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00f301bfb74c$5cfa0570$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Progressive slave wins for faculty, staff at CUNY
>Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 07:15:18 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>CITY UNIVERSITY:
>PROGRESSIVE SLATE WINS FOR FACULTY AND STAFF
>
>Special to Workers World
>New York
>
>In a hotly contested union election, a progressive slate
>called the New Caucus has won 16 out of 21 Executive Board
>seats in the Professional Staff Congress, with two seats so
>close that a count of disputed ballots will be necessary.
>
>The PSC is an affiliate of the American Federation of
>Teachers. It represents 15,000 teachers and staff members
>at the City University of New York--the biggest urban
>public university in the country. Many of the faculty are
>part-time and poorly paid.
>
>The New Caucus won this victory despite a sustained
>campaign of red baiting by its opponents, who have
>controlled the union for the last 20 years or so.
>
>New Caucus presidential candidate Barbara Bowens is an
>English professor at Queens College. She was a paid union
>organizer for the Farm Workers before she volunteered to
>help organize the clerical workers at Yale University.
>
>Her opponents didn't dare attack her background as a union
>organizer. Instead they focused on an article she had
>written on academic unions for the Modern Language
>Association. In the article she quoted Karl Marx and used
>the term "class struggle."
>
>This, they claimed, was proof that the New Caucus intended
>to turn the PSC into a movement union and away from what
>they called "serving the needs of its members."
>
>The New Caucus pointed out that red baiting didn't address
>the issues and that the official caucus had not served its
>members well. It had failed to get raises won by other
>academic unions, had not enforced the contract's overtime
>provisions, and had failed to mobilize the membership, the
>students and the communities it serves.
>
>The red baiting didn't work. Now the New Caucus faces its
>real enemy. It has to get a fair contract out of Mayor
>Rudolph Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00f901bfb74c$73f07840$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] On the picket line: 5/11/2000
>Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 07:15:57 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>ON THE PICKET LINE
>
>STUDENTS BACK OSU STRIKE
>
>Almost 2,000 maintenance and service workers at Ohio State
>University in Columbus walked out on strike May 1.
>
>On May 2, strikers got a boost when NAACP President Kweisi
>Mfume refused to cross picket lines to deliver a speech.
>Mfume was to have been the keynote speaker at a conference
>on affirmative action and diversity. Local 4501 is made up
>mostly of African American workers. Strike supporters say
>the OSU administration is using barely concealed appeals to
>racism to try to turn the student body against the
>strikers.
>
>In the days leading up to the start of the strike, a mass
>mobilization of student and community supporters reached
>out to the workers in solidarity. On April 26, a group sat
>in at Bricker Hall, the OSU administration building. They
>stayed. The occupied building has been designated a
>"liberated area." Occupiers say they will remain inside
>until Local 4501's demands for a decent contract are met.
>
>Over a thousand people attended a candlelight vigil and
>rally in front of the OSU administration building the night
>of April 30. A graduate student who is active in an
>organizing drive among graduate employees said the entire
>campus must be organized "because that's the only way to
>bring justice and democracy to OSU." After the rally,
>workers and students marched from the main campus to the
>university hospital, chanting, "No contract, no work." As
>midnight tolled, hospital workers walked out, joining the
>protest and starting the strike.
>
>One of the OSU administration's most offensive contract
>proposals would establish a lower pay scale for the
>hospital workers. Local 4501 President Gary Josephson said
>the union is united against this "apartheid" tactic. The
>union also refuses to accept a " pay system the university
>is pushing. Workers want to make a decent wage. According
>to the union, average pay at OSU, adjusted for inflation,
>is lower than it was 15 years ago.
>
>CHICAGO JANITORS WALK
>
>Like their sisters and brothers in Los Angeles, the
>workers who clean buildings in Chicago's downtown Loop
>district walked out on strike in April--and won a new,
>improved contract. Negotiators for the Service Employees
>union say building owners had a quick change of heart
>within 24 hours of the start of the walkout. Janitors
>ratified a three-year contract featuring pay and benefit
>improvements, and returned to work on April 18.
>
>But there was no peace for Chicago-area bosses. The same
>day that 5,500 Loop workers ended their strike, another
>4,000 janitors walked out at buildings in the suburbs. The
>suburban strikers demand pay raises and health benefits.
>They make $6.65 an hour. They have no health insurance.
>
>NYC JANITORS WIN WITHOUT WALKING
>
>The 27,000 members of Service Employees Local 32B-32J who
>work in the apartment buildings of New York won a new,
>improved contract without having to hit the pavement. Their
>strike mobilization was so effective, the threat of a
>walkout so real, that the city's real-estate barons saw the
>wisdom of making an acceptable offer. Two days before the
>strike deadline, a tentative agreement was announced. It
>features a 10.5-percent wage raise over three years, plus
>pension improvements. The settlement also includes an
>unusual offer for building-maintenance workers: for $200,
>each worker who requests it will be provided with computer
>and Internet training and a home computer.
>
>After the agreement was settled, Local 32B-32J Trustee
>Michael Fishman announced that the union would now set its
>sights on organizing the thousands of workers who clean and
>maintain buildings in New York's suburbs
>
>NYACK NURSES DEFIANT
>
>After four months on strike, and under threat of being
>"permanently replaced," the 450 nurses at Nyack Hospital in
>Nyack, N.Y., have refused to buckle under to the bosses'
>threats. Angry and defiant at a May Day meeting, the
>striking nurses voted overwhelmingly to reject a contract
>settlement recommended by union officials. The workers have
>been on the picket lines since Dec. 21. They say they won't
>go back until they get a decent wage package--not the merit
>pay hospital administrators have offered under various
>guises--and no takebacks in sick benefits. The nurses are
>showing their stuff standing strong against an ultimatum.
>The administration says it will bring in "permanent
>replacement" scabs if the strike does not end. Instead of
>being cowed by the threat, strikers rallied in front of the
>hospital and set fire to the ultimatum letters.
>
>OVERNITE STRIKE AT SIX MONTHS
>
>As the Teamster strike against Overnite Transportation Co.
>hit the six-month mark, the union blasted the company for
>continuing to refuse to recognize its employees' right to
>representation. The strike began Oct. 24, 1999. On April
>25, strikers and supporters held a rally at the Little
>America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Inside, Union Pacific's
>annual shareholders' meeting was taking place. Outside,
>truckers carried signs with the names of drivers UP
>subsidiary Overnite has fired for union activity. On April
>27, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa called the Overnite
>strike the longest national freight strike in history.
>Hoffa said: "At this point, it appears that Overnite has no
>intention of obeying the law. Therefore, this Unfair Labor
>Practice strike will continue--for as long as it takes."
>
>ACTORS ON STRIKE
>
>The Screen Actors Guild and the Federation of Television
>and Radio Actors began a strike of television and radio
>commercials on May 1. At simultaneous strike rallies in
>Hollywood, San Francisco, Chicago and New York, striking
>actors vowed to stick together to defend their rights.
>After an overwhelming strike-authorization vote of 93
>percent, a union mobilization termed Members on the Move
>prepared for the walkout. A SAG statement regarding the
>strike explained: "In striking the advertising industry, it
>is the membership's goal to convince the employers that
>their economic and business interests are best served by
>signing a contract that is fair and equitable to the
>performers. They will be convinced only if they have no
>access to the quality professional talent essential to the
>production of effective advertising messages."
>
>SAG has pledges from Actors Equity and the American Guild
>of Variety Artistes that no member of these unions will
>take a job performing in a commercial for a struck
>producer. Nor will there be any auditions or interviews.
>Nor will producers be permitted to reinstate or renew old
>commercials.
>
>The key issues in the strike center on new technologies
>and commercial advertisers' attempts to get more profit off
>the actors' labor. For example, the cable industry has
>refused to negotiate any aspect of a "pay-per-play"
>formula. This means that while actors are reimbursed
>according to the union contract for commercials each time
>they air on broadcast television networks, they are not
>getting paid for each commercial played on cable networks.
>Now that commercials are beginning to play on the Internet
>too, advertisers are ripping off actors even more. The
>unions are demanding new contracts that provide
>compensation for actors in commercials played on these new
>media as well as radio and TV.
>
>MODERN ART, ANCIENT WAGES
>
>That's the chant outside the Museum of Modern Art in New
>York, where workers walked out on strike April 28. They set
>up picket lines. Passing out fliers explaining their
>struggle for decent pay and job security, strikers urged
>people not to enter the museum. Auto Workers Local 2110
>represents the 250 archivists, assistant curators,
>librarians, clerks, bookstore workers and other MoMA
>staffers. They had worked without a contract since Oct. 31.
>
>Strikers are demanding a 17-percent raise over five years.
>Just as important, they say, they won't go back to work
>until their jobs are guaranteed. MoMA is set to shut soon
>for a major remodeling project. During the projected two or
>more years of construction, the museum's collection will be
>temporarily housed in a site in Queens. Management has
>refused to pledge that everyone's job will be transferred
>to Queens, or even that all jobs will be reinstated when
>the Manhattan museum reopens.
>
>VICTORY FOR IMMIGRANT WORKERS
>
>On April 25, in what AFL-CIO Executive Vice President
>Linda Chavez-Thompson called "a great victory," a group of
>undocumented immigrant workers won their battle against
>being deported for the crime of organizing a union. The
>workers are all Mexican. All but one are women. They worked
>as low-paid maids and janitors at the Holiday Inn Express
>in Minneapolis--until they were fired and taken into
>custody last October. They had led a successful organizing
>drive to win representation by the Hotel and Restaurant
>Employees union. Then they were called into the hotel
>manager's office, one by one. Immigration and
>Naturalization Service agents were waiting. The INS took
>the workers into custody, charged them as "illegal aliens,"
>and began deportation proceedings.
>
>Because the labor movement is waking up to the vital
>importance of immigrant workers, the story didn't end
>there. Hotel union leaders got the workers out of jail.
>They mobilized the unions in Minneapolis. There was a mass
>rally in front of the hotel. Labor announced its solidarity
>with the workers, and denounced the bosses and the INS. "We
>don't want employers to believe they can hire undocumented
>workers, and then, if they begin a union, they can turn
>them in to the INS and walk away. This is a new slavery.
>This is economic slavery," said Hotel Employees Local 17
>Secretary-Treasurer Jane Rykunyk.
>
>The workers filed complaints with both the Equal
>Employment Opportunity Commission and the NLRB, and won
>unprecedented rulings in their favor from both. Still, the
>INS pursued its case. A hearing was scheduled.
>
>The mobilizing intensified. In the days before the April
>25 hearing, thousands of phone calls, faxes, emails and
>letters poured in to the INS, demanding an end to the
>racist persecution of the Holiday Inn workers. With the
>spotlight on, the government finally backed off. The INS
>announced that the workers would be permitted to stay in
>this country. At the same time, the hotel agreed to pay
>each worker $8,000 in back pay.
>
>Kaiser lockout
>ruled illegal
>
>
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