At Maruti Suzuki: We Shall Win!

The following is the text of a media release from India's New Trade Union Initiative:

17 July 2013, New Delhi: The NTUI stands in solidarity with the members of Maruti Suzuki Workers Union. Our affiliates, along with other progressive trade unions, gathered outside the Collectorate in Chennai this afternoon, will march in Mumbai tomorrow to extend their solidarity to them and press for the protection of their rights and tomorrow we will join them at their sit-in at Manesar.   

A year in custody with no charges filed and no bail granted, 147 Maruti Suzuki workers from the Manesar plant wait for justice. 542 workers and over 1800 contract workers were summarily dismissed for their alleged role in the 18 July 2012 incident. 11 more remain in custody in Kaithal since 19 May 2013 for their support of the union’s struggle.

All attempts of the MSWU to get the workers’ version heard have only been met with intensified repression. The journey from Manesar to Gurgaon to Rohtak to Kaithal to Chandigarh and Delhi and back to Manesar has been very long and unrelenting in its adversity. With the entire leadership of the union incarcerated, the workers elected a provisional committee of five members. Two of them are today also behind bars. The others live under the constant threat of arbitrary arrest. Charges in the case have been framed arbitrarily by the police while the government has been vindictive in its attempt to break the resolve of the workers struggle. If this was not enough, the judiciary has gone beyond its call of duty to deny workers bail since bail may be denied to citizens as this ‘…incident is most unfortunate occurrence which has lowered the reputation of India in the estimation of the world. Foreign investors are not likely to invest the money in India out of fear of labour unrest.’

The MSWU launched a sustained campaign across the state demanding the Release of all Maruti Suzuki workers arrested since the 18 July incident and Reinstatement of all workers summarily dismissed after the 18 July incident to culminate in an indefinite peaceful dharna and hunger strike at Tau Devi Lal Park in Manesar. Not surprisingly, in response, the Government of Haryana, ordered the imposition of Section 144 prohibiting assembly in IMT Manesar, around the Maruti Suzuki factory premises in Manesar, Tau Devi Lal Park, National Highway-8 and the Mini Secretariat.

The thirteen months preceding the 18 July incident were marked by sustained abuse of labour rights by the Maruti Suzuki management most of all the right to freedom of association  and the right to collective bargaining.  In turn, the Government of Haryana acted in concert with the Maruti Suzuki management failing to exercise the powers it is vested with to protect the rights of workers and uphold the law of the land. This attack came upon the workers since they succeeded in building an unwavering united struggle of permanent and contract workers resolute in their right to build and join a union of their own choice.

The dispute at Maruti Suzuki is not isolated. Yet, Maruti Suzuki has become capital’s symbol for employing the coercive arm of government to advance its interest. When Maruti Suzuki failed to break the united struggle of workers it orchestrated violence at the factory. At this point, Police and the Labour Department stepped in undermining the democratic rights of the workers, criminalising them and pushing their struggle into the ambit of criminal law. Maruti Suzuki has gotten away, without a democratic union and the legitimacy to hire a new set of fearful and therefore compliant workers. If Maruti Suzuki succeeds then it will most certainly change the trajectory of industrialisation and trade union struggles altering for the foreseeable future the balance of power between labour and capital.

Winning this struggle is crucial not just for the members of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union but for the entire working class in defending trade union rights.

Let us unite in our resolve to together sustain this struggle, for it is a struggle that we must win.

Gautam Mody

Secretary

-- 

New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI)

B-137, First Floor, Dayanand Colony,

Lajpat Nagar IV,

New Delhi 110024

Telephone: +91 11 26 21 45 38

Telefax: +91 11 26 48 69 31

Email: secretariat@ntui.org.in

Website: http://ntui.org.in

The National Rep's Prayer

Grant Me, O Lord, the genius to explain to my fellow members the policies and plans of our great Union, even though no one explains them to me.

Give me the understanding that I may forgive the apathetic member, curb the over-ambitious and accept the views of the member who does nothing until I have done something and then tells me how I should have done it.

O Lord, make me formidable in debate, logical in argument, fearless in confrontation. A lawyer, actor, mathematician, sage, philosopher, sociologist and economist; pleasing, cajoling, threatening, belabouring so that I may make the best of a good case and a good case from no case at all.

Teach me, O Lord, to stand at all times with both feet firmly on the ground – even when I haven’t a leg to stand on.

[added] Grant me the patience to flatter, pander, and support our great leaders, to put words in their mouths and strategies in their heads that they may shine for our members. And remind me always, oh lord, of your greatest blessing - that I have job security while they do not. (Anonymous).

Lord, I am a National Rep. In your infinite wisdom, see my need for all these things and in your mercy, grant them to me.

And, when I have them, Lord – MOVE OVER! 

[If you have any additional verses you would like to suggest, please leave them as comments here or, if you wish to remain anonymous, e-mail them to derek.blackadder@gmail.com]

With thanks to Sister Stringer...

Elevator Strike Solidarity Rally Thursday!

Urgent Action Call Out – Ottawa Info-Picket in Support of Striking Porter Airlines Workers

Where and When:

Assembly point is the Human Rights monument (northeast corner of Elgin and Lisgar) 

Event begins at 7:10am, Thursday, May 23rd.

Ultimate destination -- Ottawa City Hall, 110 Laurier Ave W

Background:

Thursday, May 23rd will be Day 133 of a strike by 22 courageous aircraft fuellers at Toronto based Porter Airlines.  The group, members of COPE Local 343, earns wages of $12 and $13 per hour, and they are proposing health and safety training and equipment for their members.  The company has offered paltry increases of zero for some, and 25 cents per hour for others, with nothing at all to address the group’s health and safety concerns.  Porter Airlines is led by CEO and majority owner Robert Deluce, who clearly aims to bust the recently-formed union, and establish poverty wages and rotten working conditions as their competitive advantage over other airlines.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is marking Day 133 of this strike by picking a side in this dispute – and he has picked the wrong side.  Rather than join the growing list of mainstream political leaders respecting the COPE-called Porter Airlines boycott, the Mayor has outraged local residents by inviting Porter’s millionaire CEO to speak to a crony, $45-a-plate breakfast with Ottawa’s Chamber of Commerce.  (See http://www.obj.ca/FlyingPage/35 for breakfast details)  It is speculated that the Mayor may be hoping to persuade Deluce to re-locate his union-busting operation to Ottawa.

The Workers Action Working Group of Solidarity Against Austerity is joining the growing grassroots campaign in support of these striking workers.  We invite all those interested in standing up for workers, and challenging these predatory business practices, to join us for a Solidarity Information Picket at the site of this crony breakfast – Ottawa’s City Hall.  We will gather at the Human Rights Monument at the corner of Elgin St. and Lisgar St. at 7:10am on Thursday, May 23rd.

Statement from the Striking Workers at Porter Airlines:

We are 22 Fuellers at Porter FBO, a division of Porter Airlines at Billy Bishop Airport.  We have been on strike since January 10th, trying to secure our first contract.

We formed a union last year because Porter has a history of sloppy health and safety practices.  We did not have proper protective gear and we were dangerously understaffed.

Jet fuel seeped through our gloves and one new father broke both his wrists after falling from a plane.  He was fueling a float plane by himself, a job that safely requires two.

We want to make improvements to the workplace so that it’s not a revolving door of workers, constantly needing to train new staff.  When you don’t even have access to a washroom at the fuel farm, or work 9 hours without a lunch break, people get fed up and leave.

We start at $12.00/hour and average around $13.00/h. Porter offered nothing to about half the workers and $0.25/h to the others.

Once the strike started Porter hired scabs for between $12.50 and $15.50/hour.  This is fundamentally not a dispute about how much Porter can pay, but about whether we will be the first Porter workers to strike and bargain a contract at the Island Airport.

Our message:

Boycott Porter Airlines! Corporate union busters not welcome in Ottawa!

Bring your pots and pans, let’s make some noise!

For more information on the Porter Airlines strike, see:  http://www.dontflyporter.com For more information on Solidarity Against Austerity, see: http://maydayottawa.ca

Porter Airlines Strike: It Just Gets Worse

Remember those Porter Airlines workers who have been on strike since 10 January?  How the employer was offering tiny or no wage increases and no improvements to the workers’ (and by extension all our) safety?

To that anti-union behaviour you can add the fact that Porter is listed as a user of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (see  HERE). As is now well-known, thanks to a few brave RBC employees, this program allows employers to import workers rather than recruit Canadian residents.  More importantly, those workers arrive and stay at the whim of their employer, making the abuse of their rights, including their right to organize, inevitable.

Any which way you cut it, Porter is a bad employer.  But it gets even worse.  Adding insult to injury, a major investor in Porter is OMERS, the pension plan for municipal and school board workers in Ontario.  Workers in the plan and their unions don’t control OMERS, so OMERS is happy to take union members’ money and invest in anti-union companies like Porter.

In just a few seconds you can send a protest message to OMERS telling them what you think of their investment in this company and asking that OMERS put pressure on Porter to behave reasonably and return to the table with the intent of reaching a reasonable settlement.

Just go HERE.  And please: tell you friends and encourage them to sign-on to this campaign.  It is about the Porter strike, but it’s also about how union member’s pension money is invested and why we need to control our own pensions.