[Marxism] Fwd: Workers Victorious at Smithfield and Republic!!!

["Dayne Goodwin" <daynegoodwin@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: ILC <ilcinfo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>**[see below]
Date: Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 9:23 PM
Subject: Workers Victorious at Smithfield and Republic!!

 We are pleased to be able to report two great victories for workers today
at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago and at Smithfield Packing Co. in
Tar Heel, N.C.

WORKERS SCORE HUGE VICTORY AT SMITHFIELD*

*by vote of 2041 to 1879, workers at Smithfield Packing Co. in Tar Heel
North Carolina won the right to be represented by United Food & Commercial
Workers.  The Campaign was directed by Gene Bruskin, USLAW [U.S. Labor
Against the War] Co-Convenor.  Watch the wire services, NYT, WSJ and other
media for details Friday.

Here's an article from yesterday when the voting began.

Dec 10, 5:18 PM EST

Smithfield, UFCW start vote on union

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SMITHFIELD_UNION_VOTE?<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SMITHFIELD_UNION_VOTE?SI>

By EMERY P. DALESIO
AP Business Writer


TAR HEEL, N.C. (AP) -- Employees at Smithfield Packing Co.'s massive North
Carolina hog slaughterhouse on Wednesday began two days of voting that will
decide whether unions will get a rare boost in the country's least-unionized
state.

The decision on whether to call in the United Food and Commercial Workers is
colored by the rising specter of layoffs amid national economic gloom, and
the election of a president and Congress seen as more friendly to labor
unions.

But most important in the decision by about 4,600 workers expected to be
announced late Thursday will be how secure Smithfield workers feel about
their jobs, and whether they think involving the UFCW would help or hurt
them, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at
Cornell University and a former union organizer.

"They look at the things that are happening right there in their town or in
their workplace," said Bronfenbrenner, who studies factors contributing on
union success or failure in organizing. "Has the union focused on the issues
that resonate with them? Do they believe this union is theirs? It all
depends on what happens there, at Smithfield."

The UFCW has maintained an office presence near the plant for well over a
year as it tried to build trust with workers. It has brought in
Spanish-speaking organizers to meet with the plant's growing Hispanic work
force, and sided with them when federal immigration officials raided the
plant. That contrasts with the union's 1994 and 1997 unionizing campaigns,
when mobilizers rushed in a few months ahead of the vote.

A federal court ruled in 2006 that Smithfield's bad conduct during those two
elections unfairly skewed the votes the union lost.

But Bronfenbrenner thinks the past month may have marked a turning point in
America's mood. More than half a million people were laid off in November
alone, the government reported last week. A recession was officially
declared, and signs mounted that the coming months or years could be the
hardest hard times since the Great Depression.

Rising public anger over taxpayer bailouts for corporations focused on the
CEOs of the Detroit Three automakers flying private jets to Washington to
ask for public money. Workers at a Chicago window factory occupied private
property to demand Bank of America reverse its decision to cut off credit,
and President-elect Barack Obama signaled he sided with them, Bronfenbrenner
said.

"This is a time workers are feeling, 'maybe this is our time and maybe
employers aren't so invincible,'" she said.
. . .


======================================================

[Republic workers are represented by United Electrical, Radio & Machine
Workers of America Local 1110, which is affiliated with UE Western District,
an affiliate of USLAW.  Carl Rosen, UE District President, is on the
Steering Committee of USLAW.]

Chicago workers vote to end sit-in at factory
By MICHAEL TARM (Associated Press Writer)
>From Associated Press
December 11, 2008 1:19 AM EST

 http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20081210/49409e50_3
ca6_1552620081211532832579

CHICAGO - Jubilant workers, cheering and chanting "Yes We Can," celebrated
outside a Chicago factory after approving a $1.75 million agreement to end
their six-day sit-in, a dispute that became a symbol of the plight of labor
nationwide.

Republic Windows & Doors, union leaders and Bank of America reached the deal
Wednesday night. It was not immediately clear when workers would leave the
North Side factory.
. . .

**
[The International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC) is a
multi-tendency international regroupment of trade unionists and political
activists in 92 countries around Party of the Workers in France. It
includes, among other groups, the Workers' Party (Algeria), O Trabalho in
Brazil, Social Politics and Democracy in Germany, Workers' Information in
Spain, International Workers Network in Sweden and Socialist Organizer in
the United States. Many of these groups, especially the larger ones, are
associated with Lambert's Fourth International (ICR). Additionally dozens of
unions from around the world have also participated and joined the ILC.
. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Liaison_Committee_for_a_Workers%27_International
dayne]
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