Sunday, December 17, 2006
The US Army to be used to break up a strike at Goodyear?
What the hell....
From MSNBC:
No matter which side is right on this, using the military to break it up is not the correct way to approach it.
From MSNBC:
US Army might break Goodyear Strike
By Bernard Simon in Toronto
Updated: 10:12 p.m. ET Dec 15, 2006
The US Army is considering measures to force striking workers back to their jobs at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant in Kansas in the face of a looming shortage of tyres for Humvee trucks and other military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A strike involving 17,000 members of the United Steelworkers union has crippled 16 Goodyear plants in the US and Canada since October 5.
The main issues in dispute are the company's plans to close a unionised plant in Texas, and a proposal for workers to shoulder future increases in healthcare costs.
An army spokeswoman said on Friday that "there's not a shortage right now but there possibly will be one in the future".
According to Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House of Representatives armed services committee, the strike has cut output of Humvee tyres by about 35 per cent.
Mr Hunter said that the army had stopped supplying tyres to units not related to the Central Command, which is responsible for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tyres were also not being provided to army repair depots.
While concern has centred on the Humvees, tyres are also critical to aircraft and other military equipment.
Goodyear brushed off concerns of looming shortages, saying that production at the Kansas plant, where the Humvee tyres are made, "is near normal levels and will be back to 100 per cent in the near future."
It added that "we're in daily contact with the military to ensure delivery of the required Humvee tyres".
The company said it was using salaried and temporary workers to keep the Kansas plant running. It has taken similar measures at other plants, as well as stepping up imports from overseas factories to maintain supplies to the car and truck industry.
The union claims that the strikebound plants are running at about 20 per cent of capacity. Goodyear has said that North American output is at about half normal levels, including non-union plants.
According to Mr Hunter, the army is exploring a possible injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act to force the 200 Kansas workers back to their jobs.
He proposed that they return under their current terms of employment, on the understanding that any settlement would be extended to them.
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
No matter which side is right on this, using the military to break it up is not the correct way to approach it.
Comments:
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i was a member of the United Steelworkers union for 26 years. now i'm a semi retired drunk and stoner :)
# posted by 
: 12/17/2006 09:32:00 PM
: 12/17/2006 09:32:00 PM
Hi Smoke! How are you tonight? I am always on the side of the Union because my father was part of the paper union for years! When he was at the S.D. Warren Paper Mill in Westbrook, Maine there were over 4000 member of the Union. He retired as a foreman in 1999. His friend Butch who still works for the company (it's now called Sappy Paper Mill which is a South African) told us last summer that there are only 300 members left. Sappy has worked hard to get rid of the Union members and the whole company is in shambles. Without the Union, many Mainers have lost their jobs. Pisses me off!
Nothing wrong with being a drunk and stoner Smoke, because you have a bigger heart than all the neocons I've met online all these years! They're putrid human beings.
Bush and his repug neo-con backers would JUST love to be able to sick US Troops on US civilians to break a legal Union of people who are fighting for their rights.
They hate Unions because it does not allow Bush to retrograde this country back to the horrible conditions and pay which workers were forced to endure during the TIME Bush and his sycophantic greedy crowd he pimps for want to return to; the Gilded Age when workers were killed and maimed, children had to work for long hours and ONLY the rich had very many privileges in this country.
If you work from sun up to sun down six days a week for a pittance you may be told you've got rights, but because you have NO money you can NOT legally do much, but work.
This would be what Bush ET AL want the vast majority of US citizens to return to....subsistence conditions which leaves no time for anything else for the sheeple to do. and a large base of potential recruits for their wars for the Neo-con Empire....
You do not need a draft if people have to join to find a job, nor do you need repressive legal means if you can economically enslave hundreds of millions of people to the corporate state, and force them to live by the laws it writes and has congress rubber stamp. And family dynasties to pass the privileges of money and power from generation to generation, of the "chosen few".
They hate Unions because it does not allow Bush to retrograde this country back to the horrible conditions and pay which workers were forced to endure during the TIME Bush and his sycophantic greedy crowd he pimps for want to return to; the Gilded Age when workers were killed and maimed, children had to work for long hours and ONLY the rich had very many privileges in this country.
If you work from sun up to sun down six days a week for a pittance you may be told you've got rights, but because you have NO money you can NOT legally do much, but work.
This would be what Bush ET AL want the vast majority of US citizens to return to....subsistence conditions which leaves no time for anything else for the sheeple to do. and a large base of potential recruits for their wars for the Neo-con Empire....
You do not need a draft if people have to join to find a job, nor do you need repressive legal means if you can economically enslave hundreds of millions of people to the corporate state, and force them to live by the laws it writes and has congress rubber stamp. And family dynasties to pass the privileges of money and power from generation to generation, of the "chosen few".
Goodyear is one of the contestants in the Jobs with Justice "Grinch of the Year" contest. Vote before 5pm Dec. 20th at http://www.jwj.org/grinch.html. Please spread the word!
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