RealTeam

Title: Protest Union Busting By Coast Guard START DATE: Monday January 23 TIME: 1:30 PM - 5:30 PM Location Details: PRESS CONFERENCE 1:30 pm
Homeland Security Office, 1111 Broadway, Oakland, CA

RALLY 2:30 pm
Federal Building, 1301 Clay St., Oakland, CA

MARCH 3pm
to Coast Guard Island, Embarcadero in Oakland Event Type: Protest DEMONSTRATION TO DEFEND WASHINGTON DOCK WORKERS

PROTEST USE OF U.S. COAST GUARD FOR UNION BUSTING


PRESS CONFERENCE 1:30 pm
Homeland Security Office, 1111 Broadway, Oakland, CA

RALLY 2:30 pm
Federal Building, 1301 Clay St., Oakland, CA

MARCH 3pm
to Coast Guard Island, Embarcadero in Oakland


On Monday, January 23, the Occupy Oakland Labor Solidarity Committee and the Committee to Defend the ILWU will demonstrate to protest the use of armed Coast Guard cutters and helicopters to escort a grain ship which is to be loaded at the port of Longview, Washington at a terminal operated by EGT, a giant grain consortium. The terminal is being picketed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). EGT, which built a new $200 million dollar terminal, is violating the port's contract which provides for ILWU workers to perform waterfront labor.

In the SF Bay Area, ILWU Local 10, the SF Bay area longshore union which supports the demonstration, Occupy Oakland and the SF Labor Council are organizing a caravan to Longview to meet the ship upon arrival, possibly this month. Occupy movements in Longview, Portland and Seattle are also mobilizing supporters to go to Longview. Solidarity with the Longview workers was one of the motivations behind the November 2 and December 12 port shutdowns in Oakland.

Local and state police are expected to be out in force. There have been 220 arrests of union supporters in Longview and fines of over $300,000 for blocking trains and trespassing on EGT port property. Introduction of the Coast Guard, however, is the first time that federal authorities have become involved in the dispute.

In a resolution adopted by the San Francisco Labor Council on January 9, the council condemned, "in the strongest terms," this "first known use of the US military to intervene in a labor dispute on the side of management in 40 years." In 1971, President Nixon called out the U.S. Army and National Guard in an attempt to break a postal strike. The Obama Administration's planned action is strongly reminiscent of Reagan's wholesale firing of PATCO workers, using 1248 military air traffic controllers to replace the union strikers in 1981.

The use of the military against longshore workers illuminates the hypocrisy of the U.S. government which chides governments around the world for unleashing their armed forces against their own citizens.

Longshoreman Anthony Leviege, called the Longview union struggle "a watershed struggle for organized labor. No more PATCO's!".

The ILWU has a record of militant dock actions over contract issues and social protests including South African apartheid and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Weakening of the ILWU and work standards it has negotiated over decades will lead to the erosion of conditions for all workers. If ever there was a time that the union cry "An injury to one is an injury to all" is relevant, that time is now.



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Teamsters strike at Nichols Aluminum
Thomas Geyer The Quad-City Times |

Members of Teamsters Local 371 picket Friday outside of the Nichols Aluminum plant on Rockingham Road in Davenport. The union went on strike at 4:30 p.m. after negotiations for a new contract reached an impasse. The last four-year contract expired Nov. 15. (Thomas Geyer/Quad-City Times)

...Members of Teamsters Local 371 walked off their jobs at Nichols Aluminum and onto the picket line Friday as negotiations on a new contract reached an impasse.

"The union indicated they were going to go on strike at 4:30 p.m. today and they did so," Thomas Brackmann, president of the west Davenport manufacturer, said Friday night.

"We have been working on this since the beginning of October," Brackmann added. "We will endeavor to come to an agreeable settlement."

The contract between the company and the union expired Nov. 15.

Standing with union members outside the company's plant on Iowa 22, Local 371 president Howard Spoon said the biggest sticking point in the negotiations is health insurance.

"The company is saying that the employees cannot keep the quality of health insurance they currently enjoy," Spoon said. Nichols wants to replace the current health care insurance policy "with something that is not as good," he said.

"They want to ship a lot of the cost back onto the employees," he said.

Local 371 represents about 254 Nichols employees, Spoon said.

Several non-economic issues also need to be settled, he added.

Spoon said he hopes the union and company can get back to the negotiating table soon, maybe as early as Monday. There hasn't been a strike against Nichols since the 1960s, he added.

In addition to the plant on Iowa 22, Nichols has a facility on Rockingham Road where striking union members also carried signs on Friday.

In October, Nichols laid off 34 production workers indefinitely from Iowa 22 facility, and eliminated a production shift.

At that time, Brackmann said weakened demand for aluminum by the construction industry prompted the company to cut its work force. The plant remelts aluminum scrap to produce coiled sheet, which is sold to customers who fabricate it into final products.

Brackmann said two-thirds of the plant's volume is eventually turned into building materials - particularly for the housing industry. Its aluminum, which it sells bare or coated, is used to make products such as gutters, downspouts, window screen frames, soffits, fascia and trim sheet.

"All our customers are seeing a downturn in their business because the housing market is on its butt," Brackmann said at that time.

Nichols Aluminum has a total of 350 employees at its two Davenport operations. It is a division of Quanex Building Products.



Source: Quad City Times

Teamsters on Strike or Locked Out
Below is a list of Teamster locals whose members are either on strike or locked out by the employer. Local Union Company Number of Teamsters Out of Work
Local 025 Bird Incorporated 91
Local 089 Irving Materials, Inc. - Louisville, Middletown Shelbyville & Shepherdsville 47
Local 089 Irving Materials, Inc. - E-Town, Radcliff, Leitchfield & Brandenburg 22
Local 089 Irving Materials, Inc. - Glasgow/Horsecaves 10
Local 104 Redburn Tire Company 10
Local 107 JDM Materials Co. Inc. (Honoring Local 384) 29
Local 384 JDM Materials Co. Inc. 28
Local 639 Daycon Products Co. 19
Local 657 C.H. Guenther 85
Local 814 Sotheby's Inc. 70


source: www.teamster.org

Read them for yourself, and YOU be the judge.

 wpagrant@aol.com_20120105_153941.pdf (372.71K)
Number of downloads: 214

Jack Bookter, the S-T of Local 2785 who has chosen to dis the hell out of Brother Rome Aloise, and thumb his nose at Brother Jim Hoffa by refusing to implement Brother Hoffa's policies, pulls in about 105 G's a year. His wife, Yvonne, brings in about 95 G's a year. She is also (in Jack's own words) coopersting with the FBI, the DOL, and the IRB in the investigation of the former secretaries ond officials of Teamsters Local 85. Interesting, when you consider former President of Local 85 Bill Cromartie pulls in just under 100 G's from Local 85-- all the while Yvonne the office manager is providing info against him to the Feds, Cromartie already cost the Local 300 G's in a lawsuit. Local 85, ther oldest Local in the IBT, and at one time the largest brought about 5 grand in assets with into the merger with 287, They also brought about a couple million in liabilities. They even lied to Bookter (according to Jack) and told him all their bills were paid. This poor 2500 Member Local is being forced to absorb all the liabilities and bills from a Local (85) run into the ground through embezzlement. The 85 secretaries (under investigation pending indictment by the DOL) robbed the LOcal blind. They even falsified records and embezzled from the JC 7 Truck Driving School (funded through a grant from the US Department of Health tto the IBT putting it under scrutiny and possibly in jeopardy). Scary when you consider how many Teamster training programs that grant funds.

Our beef is not with Jack Bookter. He's just a guy who inherited a mess, trying to do the best he can to rectify the situation.

A word of advice to Jack: Brother Bookter, you need to stop being like the dim-witted woman with the silver spoons. Unable to distinquish your friends from your enemies. If charges are brought against you before the JC and the IBT GEB it's because you have left us with no other alternative when you decided to ignore Jim Hoffa's directive. Let's be real here, Jack. It's not like you will have people on the GEB lining up to support you.

At the end of the day, remember one thing: JIM HOFFA IS VERY MUCH THE GENERAL PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS. And JIM HOFFA is no joke, nor someone to be taken lightly,

Don't press your luck, Brother. Don't turn potential allies into mortal enemies. Because we will be as relentless with you as we were with Local 85, And we know how that went down.

We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

You've had six retirement dinners, so if you think we are gonna bide our time and wait for you to retire-- you bumped your friggin' head, Jack. It's game on, pal.

Ask around about me. I'm not your average dumb truck driver, And certainly no one you want to **** with, I have many many bigger scalps on my belt than your sorry ass would add to my collection. I don't want a beef with yo Jack, But you seem to want one with me. Fair enough. Let's get this friggin' party started...

You are deliberately refusding to let me pay my back (embezzled dues), contrary to the directive of Jim Hoffa. Rome was there. Jim Hoffa instructed Rome to work with Paul Faaola and get this done. You are making Rome look weak, inneffective, and unable to control the JC he is is the leader of. Rome might overlook that slight, but I won't you senile old mfer. You have already had five heart attacks. I'm gonna be the primary reason you have a sixth, if you don't come to your senses soon.

Consider this a warming shot across your bow. The next one will sink you, and rid you and Local 2785 of you and that no good IRB, DOL rat tramp of a wife, Yvonne, who WE ALL REALLY KNOW RUNS THE LOCAL, not you.