Strike Wave Continues: Nurses Announce One-Day Strike For 9/22

The recently ended Verizon strike was the largest U.S. strike in recent years, involving 45,000 union members. However, 62,000 Southern California grocery workers are on the verge of striking against Vons, Albertson’s and Ralph’s. The ILWU has been engaged in a long-standing and violent battle in Washington State for the past year, in which military force has been threatened against striking longshoremen. The UAW has recently agreed to postpone a strike against Ford pending settlements with workers at GM and Chrysler. 1,300 workers are striking against American Crystal Sugar. Hotel workers have been striking against Hyatt in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Honolulu. And 25,000 New York City carpenters were recently poised to launch the first citywide construction strike in 80 years.

Now, 23,000 registered nurses at 34 Northern and Central California hospitals are planning a one-day strike for Thursday, September 22, according to Labor Union Report. The strike will primarily affect two of California's largest hospital chains, Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente, and Children's Hospital Oakland.

RNs are protesting major new cuts in patient care and nursing standards. Among the changes, Sutter wants to reduce the ability of nurses to advocate for their patients, force them work when sick, raise their out-of-pocket healthcare costs, and subject them to arbitrary disciplinary policies, despite having made $3.7 billion in profits over the last six years. Kaiser and Children’s Hospital RNs are protesting cuts to their healthcare and retirement coverage, as well as unsafe staffing policies.

Nurses struck Children’s hospital for five days in May over contract disputes and attacks on their benefits. They also struck last year over wages.

Attacks on nurses’ unions and their working conditions have been increasing as large corporate hospitals attempt to increase their profit margins on the nurses’ backs. Hospitals, in general, have mostly done away with the traditional (and common sense) strategy of leaving rooms and beds unoccupied to accommodate patients during emergencies and disasters, consequently increasing the number of patients. They have cut staffing levels, placing patients at risk and increasing the workloads of nurses and other staff members.

Nurses at Washington Hospital Center (WHC) in Washington, D.C., distributed leaflets to patients earlier this year informing them of the consequences of understaffing at WHC. The fliers said that patients were significantly harmed by human errors at a rate of one injury every eight days at WHC, with a death every 45 days, according to an article in Common Dreams. The hospital’s response to the nurses’ act of free speech was to disrupt their union meeting and ban future union meetings from the site. The actions by management led to a series of short strike actions by the WHC nurses.

Nurses’ strikes have also occurred this year in Boston, Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and numerous other locations, while teachers have also been protesting attacks on the nursing profession, most recently and appallingly, the new California law allowing teachers to rectally inject diastat into students who are having seizures, rather than staffing schools with trained nurses to provide the medication. National Nurses United recently sponsored a protest against Wall Street speculation, arguing that bankers’ greed was harming the health of regular Americans.

The Great Strike Wave of 2011? (Part II)

In the Great Strike Wave of 2011 (Part I) I talked about the Verizon strike and the impending Southern California grocery strike, as well as the foreign exchange student strike at Hershey. Today I will discuss other recent and impending strikes and the implications for the labor movement.

Other Strikes and Potential Job Actions

UAW members working for Ford will soon be taking a strike vote as the deadline for their new contract approaches. However, considering the UAW’s disgraceful sellout to Chrysler and
GM, including agreeing to no-strike clauses, it is virtually guaranteed that the UAW will try to sell out Ford workers, too. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that workers will strike despite their union, which could add tens of thousands more to the total number of striking workers.

Last week, hundreds of cement workers walked off the job at the World Trade Center and other New York sites in protest of management’s demand that they accept a 20% pay cut. The walkout lasted three days, Working in These Times reported, and occurred despite the fact that they were working under a labor agreement that banned strikes and without support of their union leadership.

Around the same time, the 25,000-strong New York City District Council of Carpenters authorized a strike vote if an agreement could not reached on their contract, setting the stage for the first city-wide construction strike in 80 years. However, the cement workers cut a deal with employers this week, averting a major strike. The details of their agreement are not yet available, so it is difficult to tell how much, if anything, they conceded. The situation for carpenters, on the other hand, is still unresolved, with the deadline for resolving their contract recently being extended until August 26.

There have also been numerous smaller strikes this week, including one at the Boathouse Restaurant, in New York’s Central Park, and another by workers at a water pollution treatment facility in San Jose California. If we include the basketball and football strikes, the maritime strike on the Great Lakes, several west coast long shore work stoppages, numerous other smaller strikes, and the major protests in Wisconsin, 2011 has already surpassed 2009 and 2010 combined (the 2 lowest years on record) for the sheer number of strikes and far outstripped those years in the total number of striking workers.

None of this is any guarantee that 2011 or 2012 will see any major victories for labor, but it’s a good start. The greater the number of workers engaged in job actions at a given time, the greater the chances that some of them will win, particularly if they support each other’s actions to increase the overall pressure on the bosses. A major victory by grocery workers, for example, is in the interests of all working people as it could infuse the labor movement with new energy and inspire more workers to organize and fight back, leading to more victories and an increase in union membership and participation. It would also send a message to the bosses that labor is not dead and that any continued slashing and gutting will be costly and painful for them.

Workers’ Tough Row to Hoe

Unfortunately, CWA and IBEW officials have ordered their members back to work at Verizon, while the details of a contract get hammered out with the bosses. They have also accepted a 30-day cooling off period, where all strikes are off the table, thus taking the winds out of their sails and reducing the chances that they’ll be able to build up the strength and momentum of their recent 15-day strike. It also takes the pressure off the bosses, allowing them to return to their old tricks and to bargain in bad faith.

If workers hope to slow down the assault on their working and living conditions, let alone make any significant gains, they will have to fight not only their bosses, but their union bosses, as well, as demonstrated by the UAW and numerous other unions, particularly in Wisconsin, where the unions ordered their members back to work despite the fact that there were already thousands of angry workers skipping work and willing to risk getting arrested. Many wanted a general strike. Instead, union leaders argued for a political settlement that never come and that no potential to improve wages or benefits.

Workers also need to recognize that their fates depend on the fates of their fellow workers and be willing to take some risks and make some sacrifices on their behalves. Teachers, for example, should be organizing for a general strike, not only to halt budget cuts that threaten their livelihoods, but to halt the cuts that threaten their students’ families and support services for children. They need to be willing to take job actions to support their clerical and custodial colleagues, not only because school custodians and clerical workers make teachers’ work easier, but because they need reciprocal support when they strike. Teachers need to be willing to take job actions in opposition to NCLB, charter schools and vouchers, not only because it threatens their working conditions, but because they are big giveaways to corporate vultures who are not only raiding public education, but the entire public sector.

Strikes are risky. We lose wages and risk losing our jobs when we go on strike. However, by not striking the losses are guaranteed: declining wages, slashed benefits, increased workloads, and emboldened bosses who constantly want more and know they can get it.

The Great Strike Wave of 2011? (Part I)

The recent Verizon strike, which involved 45,000 workers, was the largest labor struggle to hit the U.S. in years. (For a recent update, see here, here, here and here). It is also just the beginning. 62,000 grocery workers in southern California are now on the verge of going on strike.

In April, baggers, checkers and butchers voted to strike against Vons, Albertson’s and Ralph’s. After months of fruitless negotiations, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) are poised to carry out their threat. The corporate chains are so worried that they are advertising for scabs to replace their employees when they walk out (and then get locked out).

The three corporate chains posted profits of $4.5 billion in 2009, while their CEOs made over $10 million each. Yet they are demanding that employees pay more out of pocket for their health insurance, eliminating their HMOs, slashing pension benefits, and abolishing overtime pay, according to the WSWS.

Despite the egregious assault on their members’ pay and benefits, the UCFW leadership has been doing everything in their power to prevent a strike. Ricardo Icaza, President of UFCW local 770, said he thought the days of strikes were in the past, while Mickey Kasparian, President of local 135, said this was not a time when workers should defend their wages and benefits (see the WSWS article).

A strike by this number of workers could be explosive and quickly spread to other sectors, as workers across the country are being squeezed brutally by greedy bosses hoping to take advantage of the weak economy and even weaker unions. If successful, the grocery workers could inject new hope and confidence in the labor movement and facilitate organizing efforts in other industries. However, the union bosses are not to be trusted and will likely undermine workers’ efforts, even to the extent of crushing a strike, should one break out.

Consider the 2003 grocery strike in Southern California, which last for 5 months, before UFCW leadership caved in to corporate demands. During the strike, UFCW leadership pulled workers from the picket line and made little effort to organize solidarity actions, thus weakening their bargaining power and setting them up for failure.

If the grocery workers hope to be successful this time around, they will need solidarity in the form of consumer boycotts, help on the picket line, and solidarity actions by other workers, such as teamsters refusing to make deliveries and long shore workers refusing to load cargo destined for these chains.

A Victory For One Is A Victory For All

Speaking of solidarity and underdogs, foreign exchange students have walked off the job at Hershey, claiming exploitation and abuse. Several hundred foreign students taking part in a special State Department cultural exchange program have gone on strike, claiming their wages don’t even cover the costs of their visas, according to Democracy Now.

The program is supposed to introduce foreign students to the “American Way of Life” in hopes that it will improve U.S. relations with their home countries. They certainly are getting a heavy dose of the “American Way of Life” by being forced to work long hours at low wages under physically abusive conditions. Other students participating in the J-1 visa program have been forced to work in strip clubs, live in overcrowded conditions or accept wages of only $1 per hour, according to Bloomberg Business Week.

They are also getting a good practice at organizing and fighting for justice. Approximately 400 students did a sit-in at Hershey Chocolates last week. Harika Ozer, a Turkish medical student taking part in the strike, was interviewed on Free Speech Radio News. She said that they were not just fighting against their own abusive conditions, but for local workers, who are also being screwed and who will continue to be there fighting for their own working conditions long after the students return home. She also claimed that Hershey was exploiting children in some of its plants. (Listen to the 6:44 minute interview here)

Read more tomorrow in “The Great Strike Wave of 2011 (Part II)

Verizon Workers Turn Away Customers and Chase Scabs

Verizon workers have been picketing at Verizon stores in the Northeast, successfully turning away customers and eating into corporate profits. However, Verizon is seeking injunctions to end this practice, according to Labor Notes. Union employees are also engaging in mobile pickets to block scab technicians from reaching their clients.

45,000 members of the Communications Workers (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) are striking the Eastern Seaboard, from Massachusetts to Virginia. Workers are resisting Verizon’s attempts to eliminate pensions, limit raises and impose large health care costs on current workers and retirees. Overall, the concessions would take away $1 billion from workers.

Verizon argues that the concessions are necessary for it to keep up with nonunion competitors. Yet the company made nearly $20 billion during the last four years.

Solidarity in Action

On Wednesday I reposted an update from Education Notes Online that teachers in New York have joined Verizon workers on the picket line. Labor Notes reports that operating Engineers, crane operators, and other construction and building-service workers in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have refused to cross picket lines, while teamsters at UPS have refused to deliver to Verizon offices, denying the company wireless and fiber-optic equipment. They have also double-parked their trucks so as to box in scabs and managers. At least 20 scabs have driven their vehicles into picketers, sending at least two to the hospital.

Ruling Class Solidarity With Verizon

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered police to follow Verizon vehicles around to “protect” them from striking workers, according to Labor Notes. This luxury is subsidized by taxpayers at a time when Bloomberg has been slashing social services and education. It is also a gratuitous gift to a company that not only paid no federal taxes in 2009-10, but actually claimed a $1.3 billion refund.

Teachers and other workers could learn a lot by reading the complete Labor Notes piece which discusses several novel tactics being used by Verizon workers, as well as the various tactics management is using to try and stop them.