Special Thanks to Local 23!
For their very generous contribution of $1500.00 to our 2001
PCPA convention fund. As you know, Local 19 Pensioners Club will be hosting the
Coast 2001 convention in Seattle. The expenses will exceed $20,000, a goal we
are working hard to fulfill. We want it to be the greatest convention on record.
Labor is now entering a new period of militancy and solidarity in response to
the globalizers' WTO campaign to create a world sweat shop. So, if you have
missed contributing so far, please put your shoulder to the wheel and your
pocket book to a truly worthy cause and come up with a few well earned bucks for
the cause.
We also strongly wish to congratulate Tacoma Local 23 for
their support of the Kaiser Aluminum workers strike. Local 23 workers honored
the picket line And stopped it from unloading for ten days. This forced a
tentative negotiated settlement in the 21-month long strike against Kaiser
Steel, pending the Steelworkers membership's vote.
According to our ILWU Dispatcher:
"At 7:00 a.m. June 10 a boisterous and noisy picket line of dozens of
steelworkers, beefed up by environmentalists, students and other community
supporters, appeared at Pier 7. The longshore workers from the third shift left
the job and the first shift gang dispatched to work the Cupid Feather that
morning would not cross the picket line. Local 23 had been giving the
steelworkers support since the beginning of their struggle and knew how
desperate they were and how seriously they were taking this strike."
Later, at a King County Labor Council meeting according to
Senior News of the Puget Sound Council of Senior Citizens, Prentice Beaty from
the Steelworkers union said, "We couldn't have done this without you. By
the end of September, the Steelworkers will be walking into the plants, taking
our jobs back, and getting the scabs out.
Speaking of scabs, look what happened to Firestone tires when
produced by scab labor! Maybe aluminum produced by scab labor during the 2 year
Kaiser strike has gone into automobile and airplane products. Scab labor
produces scab, unfair, and unsafe products!
And while we're at it we want to report that the Port of
Tacoma is doing pretty well these days. We quote from the local press:
"The Port of Tacoma expects to break container-volume records this year.
In June, the port recorded the highest volume ever when the
equivalent of 133,000 20 foot containers, or TEUs, passed through its yard. July
also set a record, exceeding 1999's totals by 12 percent with 118,000 TEUs.
The port expects the volume for 2000 will climb to an all time high of 1,370,000
containers." Way to go, Tacoma!
With this and other encouraging words about increases in world trade, we wonder
why the globalizers keep telling us the world needs WTO "free trade"
in order to survive?
|
