Workers Struggles: The Americas – World Socialist Web Site

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Latin America

Venezuela shipyard staff proceed Puerto Cabello occupation

An occupation of a shipyard within the Caribbean Coast metropolis of Puerto Cabello continued final week. The strikers are denouncing oppressive working circumstances imposed by the administration of the DIANCA firm and the overall lack of response by the Maduro authorities.

Strikers demand an finish to excessive threat working circumstances, reminiscent of working in enclosed areas, very excessive noise ranges, fixed publicity to fumes from welding and metallic chopping, the dearth of emergency medical personnel and ambulance providers, and the absence of fire-fighting gear. “We confront an inhuman and insensitive authorities that positioned the earnings of capital over the well being and lives of staff,” declared a striker.

Moreover, the employees report a historical past of unpaid wages, manufacturing incentive bonuses, lack of correct work gear and uniforms, and assaults on the rights of retirees.

DIANCA is one in all Venezuela’s largest enterprises. But administration claims there is no such thing as a cash to satisfy the employees’ calls for. The corporate and authorities officers are holding over the employees the specter of sending the Nationwide Guard to expel the employees from the shipyard.

“White wave” of well being protests and strikes in Argentina

Well being staff carried out protest marches and strikes in Cordoba, an industrial province in central Argentina.

On Sunday, hanging Jose Urrutia hospital staff blocked a significant freeway. The employees are demanding wages that sustain with the rising value of dwelling. The hospital is the one one within the Sierras Chicas area, on the Japanese foothills of the Andes Mountains, on which greater than 60,000 folks rely. Well being staff there complain of circumstances of utmost overwork. Many workers usually are compelled to work 20 or extra hours a day.

The Urrutia Hospital wrestle is one in all 50 strikes and protests going down at hospitals in Buenos Aires and Cordoba provinces. Nearly all of these protest strikes confront the provincial governments in addition to the well being care commerce unions that, in alliance with the federal government, are pushing staff again to work.

Buenos Aires transit staff protest

Subway staff, demanding increased wages and higher working circumstances, carried on a partial closure of main station hubs on this metropolis of 13 million inhabitants. The strikers are demanding a shorter work week, that the corporate rent extra staff, and that older, asbestos-laced, gear get replaced with new trains. The well being of scores of staff has been broken by the asbestos within the older trains. Using asbestos in trains and buildings was prohibited in 2001 in Argentina.

United States

New York Occasions employees set December 8 strike deadline

The union for 1,000 New York Occasions newsroom employees has set a December 8 deadline for a strike if administration doesn’t comply with new contract phrases. NewsGuild of New York and Occasions administration have been in talks for a yr and a half which have centered on financial points.

Administration has continued to advance insulting and insufficient pay gives even because it lavishes dividends on its stockholders. One tweet from the union learn, “In 2022, the @nytimes spent thousands and thousands of {dollars} to buy Wordle and The Athletic and allotted $150 million in inventory buybacks to its buyers and but it’s nonetheless providing wage ‘will increase’ that quantity to pay cuts throughout record-high inflation.”

The membership has voted authorization for the NewsGuild to name a 24-hour strike if progress is just not made in talks. The Occasions, for its half, expressed “disappointment” with the specter of a strike and claimed that it had provided “vital” pay will increase.

Staff at Canton, North Carolina paper mill in place to strike

Staff on the Evergreen Packaging paper mill in Canton, North Carolina appear set to strike after rejecting one other administration contract provide November 30. Some 850 members of the United Steelworkers voted down an settlement that might have finished little to enhance circumstances for the employees, who begin on the poverty wage of $15.53 and hour. It was the second contract rejection by the employees in lower than two months. The corporate’s first provide was voted down in October.

When requested if a strike was being thought of, Native 507 President Troy Dills refused to provide a direct reply to the media. “There’s a process, I don’t wish to get into that intimately clearly, however we attempt to keep away from a strike. That’s the intention,” he said. “It’s a chance. Sure, it’s.”

Dill stated that administration and the union would resume talks, however refused to state a strike deadline.

Picket hit by automotive in Iowa meals merchandise strike

The union representing hanging staff on the Ingredion meals merchandise plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, stated a employee on picket obligation was hit by a automotive dropping off a scab employee. The president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Staff and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Native 100G instructed KCRG information {that a} cellphone video reveals the striker strolling on the sidewalk when he was hit. Different picketing staff allege the driving force pulled out a gun.

Some 120 Ingredion staff went on strike again on August 1 after the corporate demanded a bunch of concessions, together with the best to unilaterally enhance well being care prices; cuts in trip and seniority rights; and plans by administration to outsource the corporate’s laboratory division. Staff additionally detest the present two-tier wage system.

In September, Ingredion had introduced armed safety guards into bargaining classes with the BCTGM. Ingredion is a frontrunner in creating, producing and advertising specialty substances for industrial and meals functions. It employs 12,000 staff at 44 amenities and has markets in 120 international locations.

Based on the BCTGM, current negotiations lowered the variety of contested contract points from 26 to five, however neither aspect is offering over-all particulars. One concern the corporate has refused to think about is an amnesty clause whereupon on the conclusion of the strike no disciplinary actions or firings will happen.

Staff at a LaPorte, Indiana detergent plant locked out over demand to finish 60-hour work schedule

The corporate MonoSol locked out its workforce at its LaPorte, Indiana, facility after staff voted overwhelmingly to reject the corporate’s final contract provide. MonoSol’s proposal to Teamsters Native 135 known as for a 17.6 p.c wage enhance over 4 years and a $5,000 signing bonus.

However what’s infuriating staff is a grueling 60-hour workweek. “It is tough,” Tyler Darnell instructed the Northwest Indiana Occasions. He has labored 60 hours per week ever since he started working for MonoSol 11 years in the past. 

“They should rent extra folks, interval,” stated newly elected Native 135 president Dustin Roach.  “They’re screwing these guys round. They don’t wish to name it an understaffing concern. It’s an understaffing concern.”

The LaPorte plant makes single-use detergents and dishwasher soaps. MonoSol is a subsidiary of chemical manufacturing firm Kuraray, based mostly in Tokyo, Japan.

Staff strike Pennsylvania automotive company over pay and advantages

Staff at Autoneum Automotive North America in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, launched a strike December 1 after eight months of fruitless negotiations have failed to provide an appropriate settlement. Members of Staff United Native 1700, an affiliate of the Service Staff Worldwide Union, are demanding wage will increase to match inflation, elevated well being care advantages and any will increase in wages to this point again to April when the outdated contract expired. 

Brian Heverly, president of Native 1700, stated the strike was the product of the corporate’s refusal to take staff’ calls for “critically.”

The Bloomsburg plant manufactures insulation merchandise for vehicles and vans. Autoneum operates 53 vegetation in 24 international locations and employs practically 12,000 staff concentrating on acoustic and thermal merchandise for the automotive business.

Canada

Federal public service staff exhibit throughout the nation

Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) protested stalled negotiations final week which have left 230,000 federal civil servants with no contract since June 2021. Staff from Windsor, Toronto and Ottawa in Ontario, the place greater than half the union’s members are situated, demonstrated in entrance of main authorities installations. They have been joined by different demonstrators in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Gatineau, Quebec and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Talks broke down final Might after authorities negotiators provided a meager wage enhance properly beneath present and projected inflation charges and failed to handle key points round distant working rights and provisions. The byzantine collective bargaining course of for the federal authorities staff then noticed the 2 sides handed over to a mediator for a number of extra months.

With no settlement reached, negotiators now are in hearings with one more layer of the federal government’s collective bargaining paperwork. Hearings with the Federal Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board’s Public Curiosity Fee are anticipated to finish a set of non-binding suggestions later in December. Statements from the union point out that this report will provide contract provisions properly in need of the membership’s expectations.

If no settlement is reached, a strike vote is not going to be taken till Spring 2023. Ought to staff vote to strike at the moment, they are going to be in a authorized strike place in June, two years after the expiration of their earlier contract.