Labor Briefing: December 2016

dec-2016-zuckermanBy BILL ONASCH

The Other Election—There was never any doubt that the working class would lose the election of a new POTUS. That one was a contest between lesser or maximum evils. Heads they win, tails we lose.

But while that face-off dominated the press and airwaves ad nauseam, little attention was given to the election of the top leadership of one of North America’s most important unions—the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. To be sure, that wasn’t a battle for control of the government. But a defeat of the incumbent Hoffa-led bureaucracy by the opposition Teamsters United Slate would not only have advanced militant, adversarial unionism, new organizing campaigns, and union democracy in the IBT; it would have also inspired similar struggles in other unions.

It was a cliff-hanger at the top of the ticket. Challenger Fred Zuckerman, a militant out of the car-haulers sector, won the Midwest and South regions in the U.S., while Hoffa barely held on to the East and West. But Hoffa piled up a lopsided win in the Canadian locals, and that made the difference: Hoffa-51.5 percent, Zuckerman-48.5.

The Journal of Commerce reports that “employers that have dealt with Hoffa” are “relieved” by Hoffa’s election win because of his record for negotiating “deals involving wage and benefit concessions.”

The forces that built Teamsters United will not go dormant until the next election. Their strength ensures there will be battles ahead against the bosses and bureaucrats on many fronts.

Will There Be a Walk in the Park?—Earlier this year, General Electric sold its sprawling Louisville GE Appliance Park complex to Qingdao Haier of China for $5 billion. The new employer demanded a new agreement to replace the IUE-GE contract covering 4000 blue-collar Park employees. Their laundry list of take-back demands was long and brutal, including an end of the eight-hour day; a reduced sub-tier wage of $12 for new hires; elimination of seniority bumping rights; and a complicated restructuring of company contributions to a 401(k) retirement plan. All workers would get $5500 in cash spread out over four years—but no hourly wage increase. And they demanded a new health-care plan based on Health Savings Accounts. Seventy-two percent of 3700 members of IUE-CWA Local 761 voted to reject. As we go to press no new talks have been scheduled.

In the Cards—Service Employees International Union Local 26 has won a “card check” recognition to bargain for 600 Air Serv workers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Air Serv is a Delta Airline subcontractor employing baggage handlers, cabin cleaners, cart drivers, wheelchair agents, unaccompanied minor escorts, lavatory workers, and water-service fillers.

Photo: Teamster presidential candidate Fred Zuckerman greets a supporter.

If you have a labor story appropriate for this column please contact billonasch@kclabor.org

 

 

 

Related Articles

The International Food Crisis and Proposals To Overcome It

By ERIC TOUSSAINT and OMAR AZIKI
[Editor’s note: We reprint this article by the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM). In 1989, the Bastille Appeal was launched, inviting popular movements throughout the world to unite in demanding the immediate and unconditional cancellation of the debt of the so-called developing countries. This crushing debt, along with neo-liberal macro-economic reforms imposed on the global South, has led to an explosion of worldwide inequality, mass poverty, flagrant injustice and the destruction of the environment.

Summer Strike Wave Hits Britain

By ANN MONTAGUE
In Britain, the working class is experiencing a wave of strikes and “Industrial Action” from some of the largest established unions in the country, activity that disrupts the economy. These striking unions have made political demands in recent years to renationalize mail, rail and the electric grid.

Capitalism’s World Economic, Political and Social Crises and the Road to Fight Back

By JEFF MACKLER
Led by the dominant capitalist-imperialist nations, especially the U.S. and China, the system involves the capture and transfer of surplus value from workers in poorer countries to leading corporations in the advanced countries. Today, global value chain corporations that represent only 15 percent of all trading firms worldwide, capture some 80 percent of total trade.