Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

8 Reported Dead in Workplace Shooting At Teamster Organized Warehouse In Manchester CT
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/nyregion/04shooting.html?_r=1&hp
People were evacuated from Hartford Distributors in Manchester, Conn., on Tuesday after at least eight people were killed in a workplace shooting there.
By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: August 3, 2010

At least eight people are dead after an employee summoned for a disciplinary hearing opened fire at a beer distributor in Manchester, Conn., Tuesday morning, the police said.

Police were at the company, Hartford Distributors, trying to determine the total number of fatalities, and Lt. J. Paul Vance of theConnecticut State Police’s public information office said that one of the dead was the suspected gunman. “We do know that the suspect is deceased and there are several other fatalities at the facility,” Lieutenant Vance said.

He said that the suspect went on a rampage in the warehouse, then “probably” turned the gun on himself. “We’re still piecing a lot of it together now,” he said. According to Sgt. Sandy Ficara of the Manchester Police Department, “At least eight are dead, and we’re trying to make contact with some of the families now.”

Greece: Union betrayal of truck driver’s strike sets stage for further attacks
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/gree-a03.shtml
Greece: Union betrayal of truck driver’s strike sets stage for further attacks
By Robert Stevens
3 August 2010
The Greek trade unions’ betrayal of a six-day nationwide strike by 33,000 truck drivers has set the stage for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) regime of Prime Minister George Papandreou to step up its offensive against the entire working class.
Late Sunday the truck drivers union, the Panhellenic Union of Commercial Land Transportations (PSXEM) succeeded in getting a narrow majority of workers to call off the strike. They voted an agreement accepting all the original demands of the social-democratic PASOK government.
The strike began on July 26, when drivers stopped work to protest a decision by the government to revoke their system of licensing trucks.
Under the existing system, truckers pay the state up to €100,000-200,000 for a license to own and run their trucks. The truck owners can then resell these licenses. Many drivers feared that the measures, aimed at the “liberalisation” of so-called “closed-shop” professions, would bankrupt them or even cost them their licenses. Liberalisation was one of the conditions set down by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as part of their €110 billion ($142 billion) bailout package for Greece.

Thousands of South African Transport Workers Strike
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575236123647729644.html
BUSINESSMAY 10, 2010, 10:13 A.M. ET
Thousands of South African Workers Strike
By ROBB M. STEWART

JOHANNESBURG—Thousands of South African port, freight-rail and pipeline workers began an indefinite strike Monday at state-owned Transnet Ltd., which is responsible for the movement of coal, iron ore and other commodities.

The pay dispute comes about one month before the expected arrival of roughly 300,000 soccer fans for the start of the World Cup, the first time the tournament has been hosted by an African country.

Protests have already been marred by incidents of violence, and Transnet spokesman John Dludlu said 12 people were injured and six taken to hospital after police fired rubber bullets at a crowd of picketers that forced its way onto the company's premises in Durban, attacking subcontractors at work.

Mr. Dludlu said the company has briefed its lawyers to apply for an urgent court order against the striking union to ensure employees and assets are protected, and that Transnet will press criminal charges against those responsible for the violence.

Trade Dispute Divides US Workers According To WSJ-NAFTA Pits Worker Against Worker
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304620304575165482102728378.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews
APRIL 6, 2010
Trade Dispute Divides Workers
It's 'Union vs. Union' as Ban on Mexican Trucks Cheers Drivers, Triggers Cut in Hours at Paper Plant

By GARY FIELDS

Matt McLoone for The Wall Street Journal
Carbonless paper comes off a coating machine at Appleton Papers in March. Mexican tariffs have hit sales.

APPLETON, Wis.—Congress's vote last year to keep Mexican truck drivers south of the border was good news for DuWayne Marshall.

Mr. Marshall, 49 years old, owns a truck and hauls loads all over the U.S. from his home in Wisconsin. "Why should I have to compete against Third World drivers within my own borders?" Mr. Marshall asked during a break on a run to San Diego. "By closing down the borders, we are saving American jobs."

Elizabeth Villagomez, 38, isn't so sure. A single mother of two teens, she has worked at a paper plant in this community near Green Bay for 15 years. After the Mexican government retaliated against the trucking ban by slapping $2 billion in tariffs on U.S. paper, produce and other goods, orders plunged and managers began slashing shifts and overtime for the unionized work force.

CSX Transportation, Inc. V. IBT BLE Member Joel Don Miller-Railworker Fought For Compensation From Serious Injuries And Corporate Hostility To Worker Health & Safety
http://www.workerscompensation.com/compnewsnetwork/news/csx_v_miller.html
CSX Transportation, Inc. V. Joel Don Miller
22 March, 2010 01:18:00compnewsnetwork
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Montgomery, AL (CompNewsNetwork) - CSX Transportation, Inc. ("CSX"), appeals from a judgment entered on a jury verdict awarding Joel Don Miller damages of $450,000. The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed.

Facts and Procedural History

Miller was employed with CSX and its predecessors from March 1967 until March 2003. During his 36-year career with CSX, Miller rode freight trains working as a conductor, a brakeman, and a flagman. Miller's career with CSX can be divided into two phases. From 1967 until 1988 he primarily rode the Montgomery-to-Mobile route. In 1988, he relocated to Pensacola and primarily rode the Pensacola-to-Mobile route until he retired in 2003.

Miller rode the lead locomotive engine when working as a brakeman and the rear caboose when working as a conductor and flagman. Miller testified that in all three positions he was exposed to traumatic forces, including vibration, jerking, and jolting, on a daily basis while he was employed with CSX. The typical freight-train trip was described as "rough."

"The Campaign to Stop Single-Employee Railroad Crews"

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/flanders180110.html

by Jon Flanders
Labor productivity soared in the United States in 2009. According to the Transport Times of December 3, 2009, productivity increased by 6.4% in the second quarter and leaped by 8.1% in the third quarter.

Labor costs fell at a 2.5% rate in the third quarter of 2009, capping the biggest 12-month drop in seven years.

This good news for corporate America is the upside for them of the "Great Recession" that began in late 2007. Clearly, workers who have had the good fortune not to have been laid off are willing to work harder for less, just for the privilege of having a job.

Jared Boehlke may or may not have been aware of these statistics as he worked in the CSX Selkirk rail yard on Mother's Day of 2009, during the second quarter of this dramatic increase in US labor productivity. His job, running a locomotive via remote control, hooking up railcars in the departure yard, had been created to replace that of a locomotive engineer working with a brakeman or conductor to do this work. Jared was working alone, standing on the ground and moving cars around with a remote control beltpack, doing the work of both the engineer and the conductor.

How the Teamsters Beat Goldman Sachs

http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew01082010.html

Weekend Edition
January 8 - 10, 2010

Saving 30,000 Jobs

How the Teamsters Beat Goldman Sachs

By ANDREW COCKBURN

Among the causes of the ongoing financial meltdown, many experts cite the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, smuggled through Congress late on a December evening in 2000. The law exempted Credit Default Swaps (CDS) which are essentially bets on the value of securities from all regulation, including state gambling laws. This allowed Wall Street to conclude that any risk could be hedged with a bet. The result, of course, was disaster, with economic consequences that we will be feeling for a very long time.

“When I wrote part of that legislation with these hands on my little keyboard,” a former financial industry lobbyist who helped craft the law recently told me, “I didn’t realize that this was going to make people lose their jobs, pension funds their reserves, universities their endowments. But that’s what happened”

There are now shelves full of books describing the disaster caused by the enabling of Wall Street as a wide open casino. Butt amidst the wreckage and plaintive cries for “reform,” Wall Street is full tilt in the business of destroying companies and throwing thousands of men and women out of work in order to turn a quick profit on a CDS trade.

A big step for Teamster reform in NYC

http://socialistworker.org/2009/12/18/big-step-for-teamster-reform

A big step for Teamster reform
Former Teamsters Local 804 member Danny Katch looks at the significance of the reformers' victory in the union's recent election.
December 18, 2009

Tim Sylvester (left, facing camera), the newly elected president of Teamsters Local 804, with a group of UPS drivers (804 Members United Slate)

THE TEAMSTER reform movement took a step forward earlier this month when members of the New York City-based Local 804 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters voted for Tim Sylvester and the 804 Members United slate.

The new reform team, which defeated the incumbent leadership of Howard Redmond by a more than 2-to-1 margin, won the election by pledging to increase member involvement and take a more confrontational approach with the local's main employer, UPS. "The membership was ready for change," said Ken Reiman, a member of the new executive board and leader in Teamsters for a Democratic Union. "They told us this at every gate we hit."

The reformers' victory in New York has national significance. Local 804 is one of the largest locals of UPS workers, and the change in local leadership could increase pressure on IBT President James Hoffa to stand stronger against company demands for concessions.

Korean KORAIL’s plans to terminate KRWU’s collective bargaining agreement revealed

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/393942.html

KORAIL’s plans to terminate KRWU’s collective bargaining agreement revealed
LDP Lawmaker Lee Jeong-hee shares documents that support her allegation that the termination was planned two months prior to the KORAIL strike

» Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) hold a demonstration to protest the labor policies of the Lee Myung-bak administration in front of the Industrial Bank branch located in Yeouido, Dec. 16.
An internal KORAIL document has been released that shows the termination of Korean Railway Workers’ Union (KRWU) collective bargaining agreement had been planned in advance in early October, some two months prior to the KORAIL strike.

On Wednesday,　Democratic Labor Party Lawmaker Lee Jeong-hee disclosed meeting materials composed at KORAIL’s personnel and labor office in early October. The document shows that KORAIL formulated a strategy to pressure the union with termination of its collective bargaining agreement. The materials also indicate that if KRWU decided to not accept KORAIL’s proposed changes to the collective bargaining agreement and took action after the conclusion of mediation efforts by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), the company had plans to inform the union it was terminating the collective bargaining agreement. This means that as long as the termination was an established fact unless the union yielded.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=tr&u=http://www.sendika.org/yazi.php?yazi_no=28127&ei=AxsfS5TQB4P8tAOAmJ39CQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBAQ7gEwAA&prev=/search?q=http://www.sendika.org/yazi.php%3Fyazi_no%3D28127&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS310&sa=G

Transportation-Job was the dominant and detention protest
08 Aralık 2009 --

DISK / Nakliyat-İş to be taken into custody since the raid, and administrators were protesting In Warehouse.

Transportation-Business operations and detention protest was made to.American managers and workers in custody Disk
Hours after the raid especially the Revolutionary Labor Unions Confederation (DISK) Chairman of Organizing Department, Ali Riza KÜÇÜKOSMANOĞLU to union headquarters managers, the General Secretary of the Central Aziz Cengiz, Financial Department Head Baker Rahman, Head of Department of organization, Abdullah Menem, President of the Training Department Abuzer Aslan, Istanbul Nurettin Silver Branch Chairman, Branch Secretary-Hadji Altas, Gebze Branch Chairman Erdal Kopal Disk Regional Representative and also Konya Transport-Business Representative Ali Özçelik, as well as our Member of the Trade Union of workers with Erçel Cihangir Erkan Ceylan, Nurettin Akkuzu, Dogan Ulutaş and Mehak of apparel workers insurgents Erhan Smoke was taken into custody in the context of operations.