----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Burke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: MLL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 1:30 AM
Subject: [MLL] Fw: [fightback] Southern Labor on the Move: Sppedrack Workers Stand
Strong
Best regards,
Tom Burke
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fight Back" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2000 10:48 PM
Subject: [fightback] Southern Labor on the Move: Sppedrack Workers Stand
Strong
> --------------------------------------------------------------------<e|-
> GET A NEXTCARD VISA, in 30 seconds! Get rates
> of 2.9% Intro or 9.9% Ongoing APR* and no annual fee!
> Apply NOW!
> http://click.egroups.com/1/7872/7/_/_/_/966224920/
> --------------------------------------------------------------------|e>-
>
> ====================
> Fight Back Newspaper
> www.frso.org/fight
> ====================
>
> This article is from the Summer 2000 edition of Fight
> Back newspaper.
>
>
> Southern Labor on the Move...
> Speedrack Workers Stand Strong
>
> By Sherida Hudak
>
> Hamilton, AL - "This is a fight to the death. We will
> not let the scabs have this plant. If we can't have
> it, we will shut it down," vowed the local United
> Steel Workers of America membership.
>
> Steelworkers on strike at Speedrack Products Group
> Ltd. since January 31, continue a battle that will
> last "one day longer" than the company's resolve. Many
> of the members are accustomed to long-term fights,
> some have participated in previous strikes at other
> workplaces and a good number have been fighting for a
> union at Speedrack for nine years.
>
> Since 1991, the Alabama company's practice of using
> work release prisoners has increased so that they
> make up about half of the workforce. The union won
> recognition in September of 1999 after the U.S. Court
> of Appeals determined that the ballots of work
> release prisoners at Speedrack must be counted. Now
> the members are demanding a fair contract.
>
> When the only other union in town, the United Auto
> Workers, came out in support of the approximately 100
> steelworkers, local police tried to prevent their
> demonstration. The police cited the injunction against
> the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) as reason
> to stop the UAW protest, although local police did
> not even have jurisdiction in injunction enforcement.
>
> Marion County's Judge Aderholt, a Republican who owns
> his own plant in the vicinity and is the father of
> Congressman Robert Aderholt, handed down the
> injunction against the steelworkers. It severely
> limits their picketing and allows only five USWA
> members to demonstrate at two locations in view of the
> plant. It keeps the union 30 feet from the gate. It
> prevents picketing on public roads immediately
> surrounding the company and even restrains them to no
> closer than five feet to the opposite side of the
> road.
>
> Even with the county's 9.5% unemployment rate and the
> inability of the work release prisoners to participate
> in the picket prior to the injunction, the strikers
> had successfully stopped production.
>
> The mayor and police chief provide Speedrack with full
> time police service. Strikers have been accused of,
> and arrested for foul language. Meanwhile, as the cops
> sat at the company, scabs threw bombs at the strikers.
> A member's truck was burnt in his driveway. Another
> scab, wielding a lead pipe, beat a member on picket
> duty, who was videotaping those crossing the line.
> Police classified the bombings as "littering" and
> insisted that the beating had been provoked.
>
> In a meeting with federal mediation, Speedrack stood
> on its final offer, removing the eight-hour day as
> standard, changing employee status to part-time for 36
> hours or less, removing heath care benefits and
> lowering the average wage below $7.75. They intend for
> employees to remain off work for one week without pay
> during the holiday season, to pay for uniforms, and to
> purchase their own tools.
>
> Recently, the mediator indicated that the company was
> willing to meet a second time and the negotiation
> committee made the nearly 100-mile trip to Birmingham
> again. Speedrack's only object at the meeting appeared
> to be an opportunity for manager Tom Whitaker and
> company attorney Ron Passarrelli, of the firm Wessels
> and Pautsch, to express pleasure with their new scab
> workforce.
>
> Back in Hamilton, strikers maintain the picket 24
> hours a day and are stubbornly digging in for this
> hard fight for their first contract. Recently, they
> have erected a permanent structure at the site and
> raised the American flag. They appreciated their
> previous strike headquarters, maintained out of
> generosity at the local UAW hall, but they have found
> office space in the center of town, across from the
> Marion County courthouse. The Steelworkers have formed
> a citizen's coalition to elect new city government
> officials and are looking forward to the summer
> elections.
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Fight Back! / Lucha y Resiste is a newspaper that
> builds the people's struggle. We provide coverage and
> analysis of some of the key battles facing working and
> low-income people. This article can be reprinted,
> copied or distributed as long as it is credited to
> Fight Back!. Contact us at Fight Back!, PO Box 582564,
> Minneapolis, MN 55440, USA.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.frso.org/fight
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
> http://mail.yahoo.com/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
