Machine company plans 296 layoffs

[saigon68]

Read the article--its Union Busting and more

We're on the Cusp of the "recovery" NOT

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_16573392.shtml

Paper Converting Machine Co. informed employees Thursday that it would temporarily lay off 296 manufacturing workers beginning Aug. 15

Tom Derrickson, president of United Autoworkers Union Local 1102, said 175 of those facing layoff are union members.

While most of the company’s layoffs are temporary, the on-again, off-again work is difficult for employees, he said. “They’re very frustrated with the economy — the fact that it just doesn’t look like there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Derrickson said.

The company in March notified employees of its intent to restructure facilities and work responsibilities.

[uptown ruler]

1. its the same..

in western north carolina, we've had a ton of layoffs in the last four years...


Spread the Word
CausePimpingThePeopleAin’tEasy

[bluestateguy]

2. I wonder how often layoffs are really "temporary"

Karl Rove can't be happy about almost 300 unemployed workers in an election year in a state Bush lost by 5000 votes in 2000.

[saigon68]

6. The Chimp is spending Mega Bucks here

His ugly SIMIAN face is on at least 20 minutes of commercials a night, non-stop.

[4morewars]

3. Please DU this poll

Please vote YES in this survey

http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0406/09/a01-178587.htm

<snip>
Unionization method
In so-called neutrality agreements, an employer gives a union the right to recruit on company property. The company agrees to recognize the union if a majority of workers sign cards, instead of holding secret ballot elections. The NLRB is reconsidering this practice. Do you think card checks are a fair way to select union representation?
<snip>

The corrupt bush* admin is poised to put an end to card checks, so much for family values, like a decent paying job with bennys.

[saigon68]

5. Voted

Bumped

[seemslikeadream]

4. I wonder when those PMC's will be helping

with the union busting in this country. Not like it's anything new.
saigon68 do you remember when we discussed this and Pinkerton's role in Haymarket Square? I've been searching for it but no luck.

Private American military companies killing American citizens. Now that would never happen, would it?



When the union's inspiration through worker's blood shall run, There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun; Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, For the union makes us strong

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy
parasite; Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might? Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight? For the union makes us strong

It is we who ploughed the prairies, built the cities where they trade, Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid; Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made, But the union makes us strong


All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone We have laid the wide foundations, built it skyward stone by stone. It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own. While the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel will turn; But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel will turn; We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn; That the union makes us strong

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold; We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old, For the union makes us strong.

"Solidarity," Words by Ralph Chaplin


The strike opened in Chicago with a display of great strength and much promise of success. Nearly 40,000 workers walked out on May 1 as pearranged, and the number jumped to 65,000 within three or four days. Nor was this the full stength of the movement in the city: More than 45,000 were granted a shorter working day without striking, the bulk of them -35,000-workers in the packing-houses. In addition, there were already several thousand men on strike at the Lake Shore, the Wabash, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, and other freight yards in protest against the hiring of non-union labor. With such a mass movement on foot, Chief of Police Ebersold apprehended dificulties and called upon the entire detective and police force to be on duty Saturday May 1; and his force was augmented by Pinkerton detective previously engaged by railroads, and by special deputies, many of whom were selected from the Grand Army of the Potomac. In spite of these martial preparations, Saturday passed peacefully. The city, with hundreds of factories idle and thousands of strikers and their families promenading the streets, had a holiday appearance. There were processions and mass meetings, addressed in Bohemian, Polish, German and English.

Faced with a strike of unexpected power and solidarity, the leading business men and manufacturers united to crush it. On April 27 the western Boot and Shoe Manufacturers Association, with 60 firms represented in person and 160 by letter, was formed in Chicago for combined action. The chief iron and steel foundries, as also the copper and brass, declared that they would reject the eight-hour demand. A session of the principal planing mills was held on the morning of May 1 at the office of Felix Lang to detemine procedure against the strikers. In the evening these were joined at Sherman Hotel by all the lumber yards and box factories and the lumber industry in concert decided to grant no concessions to the workmen.

Nevertheless, by Monday, May 3, the spread of the strike was alarming. Lumber-laden craft blocked the river near the Lumber Exchange, and 300 more vessels with cargoes of lumber were expected to join the idle fleet. The building interests , then enjoying a boom, were suddenly paralyzed. The great metal foundries and the vast freight yards were tied up. To break the strike aggressive action was needed. On Monday police clubs began to scatter processions and meetings.

That afternoon serious trouble arose at the McCormick Harvester Works. the soreness here was old. It had begun in the middle of February, when Cyrus McCormick locked out his 1400 employees in reply to a demand by the men that the company quit its discrimination against ccertain of their fellows who had taken part in a former strike at the plant. In the following two months strike-breakers, Pinkertons, and police had attacked the locked-out men with wanton savagery. bogart and Thompson say of this period:
http://my.execpc.com/~blake/haymar.htm