...Daimler Truck strike
(From Page 1)
will be working with Labor’s Commu-
nity Service Agency to get benefits to
strikers who need them. LCSA’s Help-
ing Hands program paid for glaucoma
medication for one striker. There are
also plans to set up a food bank if the
strike drags out.
Striking Machinists got their first
union-provided strike benefits July 16.
A Lodge 1005 strike fund provides a
$120-a-week benefit starting the second
week of the strike. In week three, the in-
ternational union will kick in an addi-
tional $150 a week. Members who
serve one day a week of picket line duty
are eligible for the strike benefits, which
will be disbursed every Tuesday at the
union hall in Gladstone.
Painters Local 1094, by contrast,
doesn’t have a strike fund, but the Ore-
gon AFL-CIO is calling for contribu-
tions to help them set one up. Checks
can be made out to IUPAT Local 1094
and sent to: 6770 E. Marginal Way
South, Building E, Room 303-B, Seat-
tle, WA 98108. Be sure to write ‘Strike
Fund’ in the memo line.
Thus far, strikers have received state-
ments of support from United Auto
Workers, which represents Daimler
workers in North and South Carolina,
and from the German union IG Metall.
“It is an encouraging sign that our
brothers and sisters take control of their
JULY 19, 2013
destiny, even if it entails conflict,” said
Erich Klemm, IG Metall’s representa-
tive on Daimler’s supervisory board.
“As unionists we know that we have to
resort to industrial action from time to
time in order to protect the best interests
of our members ... .”
Daimler is headquartered in Ger-
many, where by law workers have a rep-
resentative on corporate boards.
Pickets continue 24 hours a day at
seven sites outside the Portland truck as-
sembly plant and a separate facility that
performs pre-delivery inspections.
Striking members told the Labor
Press July 12 that they are being ha-
rassed by security guards, who have
called Portland police “four or five
times” complaining of pickets blocking
gate entrances. One call was for splash-
ing water on a guard (accidentally, from
a spilled water bottle, a picketer said).
Two police cars sped past a picket line
at North Basin Avenue on July 12 as the
Labor Press was taking photos.
“They said they were called because
we supposedly were blocking the gate,”
Machinists at a closed front gate in front
of the Western Star plant on Fathom
Street told the Labor Press. “The police
told us just to keep moving. They didn’t
care how slow, just keep moving.”
Through it all, spirits remain high as
members rally behind the principle that
they deserve to benefit from their com-
pany’s rising profitability.
Expires 07/31/2013
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 5