Bauxite miners declare strike victory in Russia

Striking miners at Russia’s largest bauxite mine in the Urals have won an unprecedented agreement for a substantial increase in miner salaries, and an end to withholding of past-due payments and wage cuts linked to productivity.

What began as a wildcat strike by about 500 underground miners turned into a weeklong challenge by several thousand workers at the Northern Urals Bauxite Mine, owned by Siberian Ural Aluminum (SUAL). The strike is the first victory in a labor action by Russian aluminum workers.

Strikers said that they demanded an end to the management practice of reducing official wage payments according to a scale of rising production targets. They also sought payment of overdue overtime wages and an increase in the base miner’s salary. SUAL’s first offer was a 20 percent base-salary increase, which the unions rejected. (The Russia Journal)

70,000 grocery store workers strike

Facing “major cuts” in salary and benefits, nearly 70,000 grocery store workers — ranging from cashiers, to meat cutters, to pharmacists — went on strike in southern California on Oct. 11, after failing to come to an agreement with their employers, according to a union spokeswoman.

The strike affects 850 stores from three grocery chains — Albertsons, Vons, and Ralphs — although the United Food and Commercial Workers have only walked off the job from Vons — a division of Safeway, Inc. — spokeswoman Barbara Maynard said.

Maynard says the three employers want to “shift $1 billion in healthcare costs” onto workers, while the supermarkets say they are trying to keep up with the rising costs of health care as well as compete with other stores that provide lower wages and fewer benefits. (CNN)

Steelworkers fight trade pact

Minnesota’s already-shaky taconite industry could disappear if a free-trade agreement among 34 nations in the Americas is approved by Congress by 2005, say United Steelworkers of America officials.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement could also cause further loss of steelworker jobs or taconite plants, said Jerry Fallos, area coordinator of the March to Miami, a nationwide protest against FTAA.

“Brazil is the biggest pellet producer in the world,” Fallos said. “If they were, without any consequences, able to ship their pellets up here, it would probably wipe out our taconite industry.”

“All it does is give the multinational companies cheaper labor and less environmental standards,” said Charlie Olson, a Stand Up for Steel coordinator. “If we don’t have fair trade, they can swamp us.”

Employment in the taconite industry has plummeted from 16,132 in 1978 to about 3,200 today. Steelworkers and steelmakers say unfairly traded steel imports are part of the reason for the decline.

The March to Miami — where trade ministers will meet — began Sept. 26 in Seattle. Since then, a busload of labor leaders has crossed the country, stopping in 15 cities for anti-FTAA rallies. (The Duluth News-Tribune)