UPDATE: Ex-Cell Workers on Strike...

This week, 22 workers at the Ex-Cell metal products plant in Franklin Park went out on Strike. Despite major contract concessions by the workers in recent years, the company is now demanding that the workers cover 20% of their health care coverage costs. This amounts to over $300 a month from most workers, and the average wage at the plant is $9 an hour. Most workers at the plant have worked there for many years, some more than 20 years. It is a familiar story. A light manufacturing facility employing low wage Latino workers and forcing them to accept poverty wages by threats of plant closings. Hats off to these workers for taking a stand and saying no to further concessions.

Tune in to next Monday's episode of Labor Express Radio for more...

Labor Express Radio

Mondays - 10 AM

88.7 FM or listen live online at... www.wluw.org

For archived episodes go to www.laborexpress.org

For more pics, go to the following link...

http://picasaweb.google.com/jerrymeadlucero/ExCellWorkersOnStrike?feat=directlink

You can listen to an interview with striker Anna Maria Rico here...

http://www.archive.org/details/AnnaMariaRicoEX-CellStrike&reCache=1

There will be much more coverage on next Monday's Labor Express Radio program.

Comments

Urgent call for solidarity with Mexican miners...

Reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 316, Dec. 17, 2008 The National Union of Mineworkers, Steelworkers, Steelmakers and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSSRM) is being subjected to fierce repression by the fraudulent government of Felipe Calderon and by the Grupo México, the mining monopoly that seeks to destroy the union. What is the mineworkers" crime? It"s defending the right of workers to decide who their leaders should be without government interference; it"s defending their collective-bargaining agreement. On December 4, Carlos Pavon Campos, Secretary for Political Affairs of the mineworkers" union, was arrested in Mexico City. He was immediately transferred to the city of Monclova in the state of Coahuila (in the north), on charges of alleged fraud. The day before, Juan Linares Montufar, president of the union"s Main Committee of Vigilance, was transferred to Mexico City. Linares Montufar had been arrested in the city of Morelia i...

Best Films of 2023...

Best Films of 2023 Well, it's already early February somehow and award season for the 2023 film year is well underway. 2023 was the first year post-pandemic I was able to see the volume of new films to warrant a top 10 list - a practice I started in 2017 but abandoned after 2020 when like the rest of the world I was mostly forced to watch releases from years past on streaming services. Last year, despite my ongoing poverty, through a host of tricks, streaming services, tight budgets, and the generosity of friends, I was able to see around 40 new releases. For most of 2023, I considered it the YEAR OF DISAPPIONTMENTS . That's still my primary description of the year in film. Long anticipated and ballyhooed new films by Nolan, Scorsese, Fincher, and Wes Anderson to name a few all left me dissatisfied. Not because I am an adoring fan of these directors, but given the high regard with which they are held and given the rich subject matter on which ...

Financial Crisis Brings Historic Opportunity…

www.whatnowtoons.com Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make. Less than a month ago, every mainstream mass media outlet, U.S. politician, economic analyst, and probably the majority of average citizens would still have been singing the praises of the unfettered free market. Regulation was still a dirty word and privatization was still equated with efficiency and prosperity. Granted, the sand had already begun to shift under this ideological edifice of 30+ years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble had seriously shaken the confidence of some in the system. I had mentioned repeatedly on Labor Express Radio over the Summer the glaring contrast between the soaring gas prices we experienced here in the laissez-faire fuel market of the U.S. as compared to the low and stable prices maintained by the state oil company of our neighbor to the south. But none of that seemed to really change the mainstream belief in this country that free markets solve all prob...

Search This Blog