7 August 2009
The final day consisted of formal Workers Uniting meeting, with
officials from the United Steelworkers joined by the UK reps and US
lay reps to discuss the way forward.
The meeting chaired by USW's Vice President Jon Geenen agreed to
develop a joint health and safety strategy, to combat fatalities
and accidents in the industry; for Unite reps to be able to access
the USW's Sharepoint IT system in order to communicate and share
information with their counterparts in the USA and Canada; to
publish a regular electronic and printed newsletter for Unite and
USW members in paper, packaging and pulp and it was also agreed to
develop an organising strategy targeting non-union sites in the
USA.
Commenting on the week's work Tony Burke said: "This is the
beginning of a new era for our unions. Steelworker's reps and Unite
reps had a common goal - to work with each other in order to defend
pay, conditions and their families from the ravages of
globalisation. Workers Uniting is an exciting concept - there was
nobody at the main conference or at the planning meeting who
disagreed that we have to work as one union from no on."
6
August 2009
Day two of the USW paper conference and USW President Leo
Gerard addressed the delegates. He spoke powerfully
about the fat cats in Wall Street who were back on the bonus
bandwagon while million of American workers were laid off or
sacked from their jobs.
He pledged to continue the fight on behalf of members and
their families for better regulation of the finance sector to
prevent a recurrence of the economic crisis. Leo pressed
the case for public health care in the US and slammed the
smear campaign being run by the private health care industry.
Leo Gerard urged President Obama to remain strong in the face
of opposition to his plan to bring healthcare to 50 million
Americans who currently can’t afford to see a doctor.
Unite Assistant General Secretary Tony Burke spoke to the
conference on the global paper industry and the need to for
Workers Uniting to work together to improve health and safety
in paper mills. Tony introduced colleagues from Unite and
expressed his pride that the
paper sector was leading the way in creating the global union
Workers Uniting.
In a roundtable discussion reps from Unite and the USW talked
about their hopes for Workers Uniting helping them get a
better deal for their members. Denny Lauer from
Wisconsin said: “This is a great opportunity for us, Workers
Uniting makes the world a smaller place.”
5 August 2009
Today in Pittsburgh hundreds of USW reps from the paper and pulp
industry in US and Canada came together for their collective
bargaining conference. They were joined in their discussions
on negotiating pay and benefits by reps from Unite the Union from
the UK.
Clive Bell from SCA, Craig Foster from Georgia
Pacific and Iain Eld from Mead Westvaco all gave presentations on
their experiences of bargaining in the UK to their respective USW
company bargaining councils. “We were well received, they
were very interested in what we’ve been doing and keen to tells us
what they were up to too,” said Clive Bell.
Vice chair of the European works council for
SCA, Clive Bell gave a presentation on how the European plants work
together to get the best deal from the company. “USW
colleagues were interested in what I had to say particularly as
they are working hard to co-ordinate bargaining across all the
plants in the US at the moment.”
The conference continues tomorrow with a
speech from USW President Leo Gerard and an overview of conditions
in the global paper industry and Workers Uniting strategy from
Unite Assistant General Secretary Tony Burke.