Norway Alcoa/MIT 5 Month Lock Out of Mosjøen Transportarbeider Foregning (MTAF) Dockers

Norway Alcoa/MIT 5 Month Lock Out of Mosjøen Transportarbeider Foregning (MTAF) Dockers
Svein Lundeng‎
United Public Workers for Action
https://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Public-Workers-for-Action/51652957909
Mosjøen Transportarbeider Foregning (MTAF)

Status update Dockers of Mosjøen Transportarbeider Foregning (MTAF)
Hello there supporters and fellow union workers, we here in MTAF are still under an illegal lockout by Alcoa and their subcontractor MIT (Mosjøen Industri Terminal ) As most of you know the lockout started on the 8th of May 2014 after MIT withheld and delayed salary payments to MTAF members.
As it stands now we have had no dialog whatsoever with Alcoa/MIT and they simply refuse to talk to us despite repeated invitations to negotiations meetings or just informal chat to try and solve the dispute. Not to make matters any better Alcoa and MIT have used every opportunity to smear our members, distort the truth and spread downright lies to everyone willing to listen.
As before our jobs have been taken over by IndustriEnergi (IE) members and thus making this unionized scabbing, we have on many occasions asked IE why this is but they claim that they are not a part of the conflict. In a weird twist of fate IE now finds them self in the same shoes as some of their members are now being locked out from their work places as a result of a strike, talk about tasting your own recipe. We have a meeting with local IE representatives on the 22. Of September and hopefully we will have a more positive dialog than before.
We have met with many people from local unions as well as politicians with very positive and constructive result, everyone agrees that this is just terrible and that they will support us in our fight and we are very thankful for that.
We have sent out newsletters and heads up e-mails to national media but with limited success so far, seems like Kim Kardashian’s buttocks are of a bigger concern than the mistreatment of workers.
We are now in the 5th month of an illegal lockout by Alcoa and MIT, they have abused ISPS security passes to keep us away from the jobs that are ours by law. In that time we have not had the income we should thus putting the financial security of many families in jeopardy.
Despite all this we hold our heads high as proud union workers, we know that the right is ours and our cause is just, MTAF had a support rally on the 16th of August with participants from all over Norway and we plan to have another support rally on the 18th of October on Mosjøen square at 12:00 o’clock, hopefully we will have even more to support us this time.
On Friday the 12th of September NTF (Norwegian Transport Union) won a resounding victory in Borgarthing court over Holship AS where every single point Holship made was refuted by the judges. Holship´s case was mainly that they could use their own employees to load and unload ships and had no need to use registered Longshoremen and that NTF´s blockade of Holship´s activates was illegal. We hope and have felt already that this ruling has had a very positive effect to our cause as more and more unions are paying attention and supporting our struggle against unlawfulness and mistreatment of workers.
(read the ruling here:http://frifagbevegelse.no/mapper/Holship_borgarting.pdf)
We would appreciate all support in both words and deeds as solidarity will win us this fight and send our best wishes to our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
Send a line to pmaa70@yahoo.com for more information or to declare support to MTAF.
Sincerely: The members of MTAF, Mosjøen. Norway