Seven thousand workers at defense company Northrop Grumman’s Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard went on strike March 8, following their rejection of the company’s proposed contract. . . .

As the UAW prepares for this summer’s negotiations with the Big Three auto companies, UAW leadership is strangely silent. With the companies seeming poised to demand major concessions, the union cannot afford to look weak. . . .

The 1997 Teamsters strike against UPS was one of the biggest events for U.S. labor in the 1990s. Relying on rank-and-file member mobilization, innovative tactics, and a campaign that captured public support, the Teamsters (IBT) won a victory that buoyed union morale far and wide. Though the current UPS master contract is set to expire more than a year from now on August 1, 2008, Teamster officials opened up early negotiations with the company last year. Ken Hall, director of the Teamsters small package division, even announced recently that a possible settlement could be on the table as early as next month. . . .

Union members have a huge stake in the present debate on health care reform. At a time when employers routinely slash or eliminate health benefits for workers and their families or force union members on strike to preserve those benefits, when insurance plans routinely restrict workers’ choice of doctors and prescription drugs, and when more working families declare bankruptcy due to medical debt, only one reform can provide the health care security working people need: single-payer. . . .

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual report on U.S. union membership has, for years, sounded like a broken record: decline, decline, decline. After a pleasant break in 2005, when gains in new membership for once kept steady with the loss of union jobs, was short-lived, according to this year’s report. . . .

The most ambitious labor-driven attempt in more than 25 years to win congressional approval of sweeping labor law reform is now before Congress. The goal is to remedy the outlandish violations of human and labor rights that are routinely visited on workers who attempt to organize a union in their workplace. . . .

Motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson’s York, Pennsylvania plant, was idled February 2 when 2,800 of its workers went on strike. After voting down a company contract proposal, 98 percent of the workforce, members of Machinists (IAM) Local 175, authorized the strike. The York plant is Harley Davidson’s largest in the U.S. . . .

Twenty-one immigrant meatpackers were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers January 24 at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina.

The Tar Heel plant’s 5,000 workers have been fighting to organize a union since the early 1990’s. . . .

Throngs of union members swelled the ranks of the 100,000 protestors who encircled the U.S. Capitol January 27 to demand an end to the war in Iraq. More than 600 members of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 1199 led the thousands-strong U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) contingent in the march. . . .

Shipyard workers in Iran’s second largest port city, Bushehr, shut down the factory gates January 30 with a strike at the country’s largest maritime industrial complex, Iran Sadra. It is the third strike at the shipyard in less than a year. . . .

From late 2003 through early 2004, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) saw more than a dozen master contracts expire in the grocery industry. Facing aggressive demands from large grocery chains, tens of thousands of UFCW members struck in California, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. After months of exhausting, uncoordinated strikes and lockouts, the union threw in the towel and thousands of workers took concessions on wages, health care, and working conditions. . . .

In honor of Women’s History Month, we interviewed Cathy Austin, president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 88 in Ingersoll, Ontario. Austin is the first female president of an assembly plant local in the CAW and she got there by being a real troublemaker. Austin has worked at the CAMI car and truck assembly plant in Ingersoll since 1989; CAMI is a joint venture between GM and Suzuki. She’s worked on the chassis line installing doors, in the paint shop, and has been a union rep on the plant floor. . . .

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was assassinated at the age of 39 on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. . . .

The Communication Workers are fighting plans by New York’s state government to downsize, consolidate, and close a number of hospitals and nursing homes across the state. . . .

When you read about building coalitions, it can almost sound easy, like part of a do-it-yourself organizing recipe. You find a chapter titled something like “Building Effective Coalitions,” read a few general rules, check out a couple of examples from successful campaigns, and off you go to call churches, community groups, and other like-minded organizations to build a coalition around your campaign. . . .

When you read about building coalitions, it can almost sound easy, like part of a do-it-yourself organizing recipe. You find a chapter titled something like “Building Effective Coalitions,” read a few general rules, check out a couple of examples from successful campaigns, and off you go to call churches, community groups, and other like-minded organizations to build a coalition around your campaign.

It’s never that easy.

FULL PLATES

The toughest part of building a coalition around your campaign is the fact that it’s your campaign. In today’s world, just about any organization, especially if it’s a labor organization, has more than enough on its own plate to keep it busy, much less take on your campaign too.

On the evening of February 5, 231 members of the House of Representatives reintroduced to Congress the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA or H.R. 800). If passed, the act could significantly boost the organizing efforts of U.S. unions (see page 8)

Employers have become adept at disrupting the NLRB election process, threatening and harassing potential union members while ensuring the process drags on and on. The bill would ensure that workers who vote to form a union through card-check recognition do not have to then go through an employerinitiated NLRB election.

To see if your representative is one of the bill’s co-sponsors, go to www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork and click on the “Employee Free Choice Act” icon in the center of the page; when the next page appears, click on the “233 House Members” link, located toward the top of the page.

Seventy women credit union workers in Hamilton, Ontario have been on strike for the past four months. Though it was started by union workers for union workers, FirstOntario Credit Union is now asking its employees to give back sick days, and accept a decrease in both retirement benefits and job security. Credit union managers are calling for these concessions despite recently reporting record profits.

The striking workers, members of Canadian Office and Professional Employees (COPE) Local 343, are out on the picket line protesting the cutbacks and demanding that FirstOntario management respect their right to a fair bargaining process.