strike

Local 46 has got to win this: Time to fight with both fists!

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Class Struggle Workers, Portland Stands in Solidarity With Striking Electricians! Local 46 has got to win this: Time to fight with both fists! Class Struggle Workers – Portland is a militant tendency of union members in Portland that works in favor of a class-struggle perspective within the labor movement. We have participated in many labor actions and mobilizations, including on the picket lines of many labor struggles. We stand in solidarity with the Low-Voltage electricians, and would like to share some thoughts on how this struggle can be won. Low-Voltage members overwhelmingly rejected NECA’s latest “offer.” Now what? They’ve come back with another, even lower one. Evidently the bosses don’t think the union is serious. They think they can wear the union down until there’s no energy left for a fight. Should they get away with that? “One day longer, one day stronger” is, frankly, a rhyme without reason. Construction workers have the power to force the bosses to catch up with inflation and cough up four paid holidays. But it’s time for labor to use its power – or lose it. And right now Local 46 is fighting with one hand in its pocket. The inside wiremen’s contract is expired. They work for some of the same contractors who are all part of the same NECA cabal. The inside wiremen live with the same inflation. They deserve the same paid holidays that the lower-paid 06’s are fighting for. We think it’s clear that all the affected workers should strike together now! A key point we keep seeing the urgency of: Picket lines mean don’t cross, period! No exceptions, no excuses, no lawyerly waffling about “individual choice.” Solidarity in practice, not just words, is essential for the interests of all workers. Without it we all lose. There have been rallies where leaders of all the unions have spoken many words about solidarity. Now is the time to use it! What about the politicians who claim to be friends of labor? The union-busting, warmongering, strikebreaking parties of the bosses don’t operate in the interests of workers – labor must break with the Democrats and Republicans and form an independent workers party. And in order to fight together, labor needs to free itself of the handcuffs imposed by the bosses’ courts. The Ironworkers’ contract is expired. They just voted down an insulting pay-cut “offer.” The painters’ contract is expired. They have rejected the bosses’ lowball insults. The crane operators in Operating Engineers 302 are working without a contract and they too voted down the latest “offer.” “In unity there is strength” – putting that into action can help win, and workers from Seattle to places across the country would be inspired if all Seattle construction was shut down by a joint strike of all trades. This is a critical moment in the labor movement, with inflation squeezing the workers dry and the bosses riding high, and the time for action is now. https://csw-pdx.org/ cswp@csw-pdx.org 503-303-8278 Labor donated, 14 June 2024

Class Struggle Workers, Portland Stands in Solidarity With Striking Electricians!

Class Struggle Workers – Portland is a militant tendency of union members in Portland that works in favor of a class-struggle perspective within the labor movement. We have participated in many labor actions and mobilizations, including on the picket lines of many labor struggles. We stand in solidarity with the Low-Voltage electricians, and would like to share some thoughts on how this struggle can be won.

Low-Voltage members overwhelmingly rejected NECA’s latest “offer.” Now what? They’ve come back with another, even lower one. Evidently the bosses don’t think the union is serious. They think they can wear the union down until there’s no energy left for a fight. Should they get away with that?

“One day longer, one day stronger” is, frankly, a rhyme without reason. Construction workers have the power to force the bosses to catch up with inflation and cough up four paid holidays. But it’s time for labor to use its power – or lose it. And right now Local 46 is fighting with one hand in its pocket.

The inside wiremen’s contract is expired. They work for some of the same contractors who are all part of the same NECA cabal. The inside wiremen live with the same inflation. They deserve the same paid holidays that the lower-paid 06’s are fighting for. We think it’s clear that all the affected workers should strike together now!

A key point we keep seeing the urgency of: Picket lines mean don’t cross, period! No exceptions, no excuses, no lawyerly waffling about “individual choice.” Solidarity in practice, not just words, is essential for the interests of all workers. Without it we all lose.

There have been rallies where leaders of all the unions have spoken many words about solidarity. Now is the time to use it! What about the politicians who claim to be friends of labor? The union-busting, warmongering, strikebreaking parties of the bosses don’t operate in the interests of workers – labor must break with the Democrats and Republicans and form an independent workers party. And in order to fight together, labor needs to free itself of the handcuffs imposed by the bosses’ courts. The Ironworkers’ contract is expired. They just voted down an insulting pay-cut “offer.” The painters’ contract is expired. They have rejected the bosses’ lowball insults. The crane operators in Operating Engineers 302 are working without a contract and they too voted down the latest “offer.” “In unity there is strength” – putting that into action can help win, and workers from Seattle to places across the country would be inspired if all Seattle construction was shut down by a joint strike of all trades. This is a critical moment in the labor movement, with inflation squeezing the workers dry and the bosses riding high, and the time for action is now.

https://csw-pdx.org/ cswp@csw-pdx.org 503-303-8278

Labor donated, 14 June 2024

Strike to Win!

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Bring Out Labor’s Power to Shut Portland Public Schools Down – Victory to the Teachers!

The Portland Association of Teachers is on strike for smaller class sizes, safe staffing levels and better pay. What it’s fighting for is crucial for students, their families and the whole working class. As the strike nears its third week, the teachers are up against a school district administration that has pulled out all the stops against them, from “misunderstanding” its own budget to bringing in “reading tutors” to cross the teachers picket lines. The school district admin is going after the teachers with everything it has.

So why should the teachers be expected to fight with both hands tied behind their backs? While holding morning pickets at every school, the teachers union is issuing special passes to school employees being asked to work during the strike. These “allow” workers, from custodians to paraprofessionals, to cross the picket lines – which means helping the school board bosses keep the schools running. Instead, the whole labor movement needs to reaffirm, once and for all, that picket lines mean don’t cross. Rather than getting permission to work behind the picket lines, workers should refuse to cross, and join the pickets along with a mass mobilization of labor to help the teachers win. A defeat for the strike would affect all labor – but a victory here would be a major gain for us all.

The fate of the strike largely depends on teachers, other school employees, workers across the city and students uniting together, shutting the whole school system down – from Portland Public Schools headquarters to the smallest elementary school – and forcing the school district to meet the strikers’ demands. Along with every school district building, all active construction sites connected to PPS need to shut down too. Not a single nail should be driven and not a lick of paint should be applied until the demands of the teachers are met. Workers in the trades and transportation are instrumental in keeping the department of education going. With their help, the teachers can shut it down in order to win.

Rather than a strategy of finding secret money, “allying” with Democratic governor Tina Kotek, or federally appointed mediators from Biden, the same president who called in the power of the federal government to stop an impending strike of railroad workers, teachers need to turn to their real allies: the working class. The same federal government, Democrats and Republicans alike, that arms and funds the savage bombing campaign and occupation raining mass death on the people of Gaza is not and cannot be an “ally” to teachers here at home. And in fact, unchaining workers’ power to stop the flow of arms to that mass murder abroad is connected to unchaining the power of labor here to help the Portland teachers WIN. It’s about time. All out to defend the teachers’ picket lines and win the strike!

Victory to the Portland Teachers Strike!

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One Out, All Out – Picket Lines Mean: Don’t Cross!

The Portland Association of Teachers is on strike, a historic first for employees of Oregon’s largest school district. This struggle is of great importance for all workers – we need to win this one! Demanding better pay, higher staff-to-student ratios and smaller class sizes, the teachers are standing up for us all, for their students, and for the future of public education. Management is refusing to meet key demands – like higher wages to match area standards, and smaller class sizes to help teachers meet students’ basic needs. The strike kicked off on November 1 with pickets and a rally of thousands. Bringing out the power of workers solidarity is key to winning it.

To do so, it’s essential for all labor to be clear on what a strike is all about. It’s about using workers power to bring work to a halt. On strike means shut it down. Shut it down means solidarity in action between all sectors of the workforce – one out, all out. That goes when the strike is at a job site, services (healthcare, for example), transport, industry – or the school system. Today, while the Portland School District goes after the teachers, the classified staff union is also negotiating, with little gain in sight. Maintenance workers will be negotiating with the district soon.

Isn’t it obvious that all sectors should unite together? Yet once again we’re seeing “leaders” tell union members to cross each others’ strike lines. Instead of playing by the bosses’ divide-and-conquer rules, it’s in the urgent interest of all labor sectors to put solidarity into action. For teachers, support staff, paras, clerical, painters, maintenance and all workers, in unity there is strength. To win, we need to reassert the basic labor principle that picket lines mean don’t cross!

Teachers aren’t the only ones on strike right now in Portland. Over a thousand Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in the pharmacy, imaging and other departments are too, demanding more sustainable staffing levels, as well as 1,300 workers at PeaceHealth in Portland and Southwest Washington who went on a five day strike at the end of October. Other healthcare workers represented by SEIU at Kaiser went on strike in the month of October, and healthcare workers at OHSU got a significant raise after voting to strike. In healthcare as at schools, with “picket lines mean don’t cross” a vital rallying cry, we need to build pickets so big that no one dares cross them, calling in support from the whole of labor to force the employers to meet the strikers’ demands.

Seeking to grind us down one after another, the employers want us all to lose. Democratic mayor “Teargas Ted” Wheeler certainly has their back. In this profit-driven system, school buildings crumble and the healthcare system descends into chaos. Workers are stretched to the breaking point with absurdly low staffing levels and low pay. Democrats vote to cut spending on education and strip retirement benefits from public sector workers. Like the Republicans and all capitalist politicians, they stand for exploitation and racist repression here, and imperialist war abroad. Labor needs to cut free from the bosses’ parties and politicians once and for all. In every strike and struggle, we see how much we need our own class struggle workers party.

Today winning the teachers strike is the cause of all Portland labor. Here as elsewhere, the basic needs of the working-class population are up against a ruling class whose attacks on labor and democratic rights “at home” go together with its war drive abroad. Having used an infamous strike-breaking law against the rail workers last December, Biden and the Democrats ramp up their arming and funding for U.S. imperialist war from Ukraine to Taiwan – and today are part and parcel of the horrific genocidal war on Gaza. Yet from Italy and Belgium comes some welcome news from sectors of labor seeking to bring out the power of workers action to stop the imperialists’ arms shipments – this needs to be carried out in the U.S. and internationally. Is this all connected to winning strikes here in Portland? Damn right it is – to win, workers of the world must unite.

All out to win the Portland teachers strike! On strike means shut it down!

CSWP Forum Sunday May 21: Strike Against Deportations!

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Strike Against Deportations! A Day Without an Immigrant and the Fight for Immigrants Rights Panel Discussion with Class Struggle Workers – Portland 4pm Sunday May 21 at Cider Riot 807 NE Couch St. Portland OR For more information: cswp@csw-pdx.org 503-303-8278 Donald Trump has picked up the title of “deporter-in-chief” where Barack Obama left off and run with it, from his reprehensible “Muslim ban” to his disgusting plan to expand the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. An upsurge of nationalist rhetoric combined with an onslaught of deportations and anti-immigrant measures has been met with protests. The way to fight the racist bans on refugees and shut down ICE raids is to mobilize the power of the working class. Workers have the power to shut down raids and prevent deportations by mobilizing mass demonstrations backed by strike action. A “day without an immigrant” is the beginning of what it would take, but the attacks on immigrant workers are a threat to the rights of all of us: the multi-racial working class must use its power together, demanding full citizenship rights for all immigrants. To fight Trump, it’s necessary to break with the Democrats, Republicans, and all capitalist parties, because the Democratic Party is a party of racist American capitalism just as much as the Republicans, and immigrant-bashing is a bipartisan obsession. Hear reports from workers who have participated in this struggle and learn why the CSWP (Class Struggle Workers – Portland) says “An injury to one is an injury to all!”
Click for a printable file.

Strike Against Deportations!

A Day Without an Immigrant and the Fight for Immigrants Rights

Panel Discussion with Class Struggle Workers – Portland

4pm Sunday May 21

at Cider Riot, 807 NE Couch St. Portland OR

For more information: cswp@csw-pdx.org or 503-303-8278

Donald Trump has picked up the title of “deporter-in-chief” where Barack Obama left off and run with it, from his reprehensible “Muslim ban” to his disgusting plan to expand the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. An upsurge of nationalist rhetoric combined with an onslaught of deportations and anti-immigrant measures has been met with protests.

The way to fight the racist bans on refugees and shut down ICE raids is to mobilize the power of the working class. Workers have the power to shut down raids and prevent deportations by mobilizing mass demonstrations backed by strike action.

A “day without an immigrant” is the beginning of what it would take, but the attacks on immigrant workers are a threat to the rights of all of us: the multi-racial working class must use its power together, demanding full citizenship rights for all immigrants. To fight Trump, it’s necessary to break with the Democrats, Republicans, and all capitalist parties, because the Democratic Party is a party of racist American capitalism just as much as the Republicans, and immigrant-bashing is a bipartisan obsession.

Hear reports from workers who have participated in this struggle and learn why the CSWP (Class Struggle Workers – Portland) says “An injury to one is an injury to all!”

Support Pasco Teachers: Down with Washington’s Slave-Labor Law!

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SEATTLE, Washington – Schools here remain closed today, Friday, September 11 on the fourth day of the strike by public school teachers, the first in 30 years. While the Seattle strike has grabbed national attention, teachers in the southeastern Washington city of Pasco have been on strike since September 1, and are still out in defiance of a court order. As in public schools across the country, teachers have been squeezed by low wages, lack of basic classroom supplies including textbooks, overemphasis on standardized testing, and a dictatorial administration that will not allow teachers, parents or students any input in curriculum development.

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Pasco, WA teachers voted overwhelmingly in August to strike.

On Friday September 4, Franklin County Judge Alex Ekstrom ordered the teachers to return to work Tuesday, after the Labor Day weekend. Under Washington State’s slave labor laws, strikes by public employees are illegal. While the school board refuses to meet with union representatives, the court is set to fine the local union two thousand dollars per day, and individual union executive board members an additional $250 per day. But Pasco teachers courageously refused to bow to the slave-labor injunction and are continuing their strike as of Friday. (A court hearing is scheduled for today to begin imposing the draconian fines.)

Pasco is the largely immigrant city where Antonio Zambrano Montes, a Mexican agricultural worker, was shot down in cold blood by police last February. On Wednesday, the Franklin County prosecutor outrageously announced that no charges would be brought against the cops who gunned down the unarmed Zambrano in a hail of 17 bullets, despite cellphone video recording of the murder seen by millions. However, there may still be a coroner’s jury hearing. Class Struggle Workers – Portland and the Internationalist Group have actively supported protesters in Pasco, who have been hit by a number of arrests. A CSWP fundraiser was held in July to raise money for their defense. A demonstration against this racist injustice will be held in Pasco tomorrow.

Pasco and Seattle teachers are fighting for decent education for their students, and are now standing for the fundamental freedoms of all workers. They must have the support of working people and the labor movement throughout Washington and the country. Smash the slave-labor law! Victory to the teachers!

Pasco teachers continue strike on September 8 despite injunction.
Pasco teachers continue strike on September 8 despite injunction.

Contributions and messages of solidarity should be sent to the Pasco Association of Educators, 2318 W Court St, Pasco, WA 99301.