http://themilitant.com/2017/8132/813232.html
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Vol. 81/No. 32 August 28, 2017
—ON THE PICKET LINE—
Militant/Dan Grant
Members of Canadian Union of Public Employees locked out by Pacific Blue
Cross are joined by supporters at rally in Burnaby, British Columbia,
Aug. 9. “We are in this together with incredible support,” locked-out
worker Momena Kayode, at microphone, tells rally participants.
Wash. berry pickers protest death of
fellow worker
SUMAS, Washington — When Honesto Silva Ibarra, a berry picker at
Sarbanand Farms near here, told the company that his head hurt and he
felt ill, he was told to get back to work. The next day, Aug. 3, he felt
so sick that he left work and tried to get a plane ticket back to his
home country of Mexico. But he found out that the labor contractor
hadn’t renewed his temporary work visa so he couldn’t purchase one. As
his condition deteriorated, he was taken to a hospital 90 miles away in
Seattle, where he fell into a coma and died a few days later.
The morning after he entered the hospital a group of workers at the farm
decided not to work that day out of concern over Ibarra’s treatment and
conditions at the farm.
“The workers only wanted information about his condition. They wanted to
know what was being done to help. The company’s response was to fire
them,” Ramón Torres, president of the farmworkers union, Familias Unidas
por la Justicia [Families United for Justice], told the Militant. Sixty
workers were fired and 22 others decided to leave with them.
The union organized a protest at the farm owners’ offices Aug. 8,
demanding accountability for Ibarra’s death and payment of wages owed to
the workers.
In an outpouring of solidarity, a local couple offered their back yard
as a place where the fired workers could stay, which is now filled with
tents. Others brought food, water, refrigerators, generators, and bedding.
Torres invited Socialist Workers Party members to come to the camp to
get the workers’ story into the Militant.
“People are getting nosebleeds and ear infections,” said fired worker
Miguel Ramirez Salazar. “You work all day in wet shoes. There are
chemicals in the water, but they tell us there are none.”
“We have taken five of the workers to the hospital. Three have paralysis
of the face. We have a compañero with infected toes, the doctor told him
in one more day the infection would have spread to the bone,” Torres
said. “When that happens they would have to amputate.” The fight has
gotten widespread coverage in area press, radio and TV news.
“They just use us as cheap labor and don’t care if we are sick or if we
die,” said Torres. “The purpose of the union is to defend farmworkers.
We say, ‘we aren’t going to permit this abuse. Contract workers or
whoever, we will fight for them.’”
— Edwin Fruit
Support grows for workers locked out by Pacific Blue Cross
BURNABY, British Columbia — Support is growing here for 600 Pacific Blue
Cross workers who have been locked out since July 7. The workers,
members of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1816, are protesting
company attacks on health care coverage, wages, pensions and lengthening
of the contract. Blue Cross is a private health insurance company.
Some 125 strikers and supporters, including members of the Hospital
Employees Union, Steelworkers and several CUPE locals, rallied on the
picket line here Aug. 9.
“What keeps us going is that we are in this together and the incredible
support,” locked-out worker Momena Kayode, who has worked at Blue Cross
for 10 years, told the crowd. “This is the first time I learned what
unity is.”
The previous day 10 Hospital Employees Union members from Vancouver
General Hospital came to the picket line. Food service worker Catalina
Samson told the Militant that when the hospital contracted out their
work in 2004, her wage went from $18.10 to $10.15 an hour and she lost
all her benefits, pension and sick leave. Gemma DeJesus, who also works
at Vancouver General Hospital, added, “We’ve gone through this. We know
how it is.
— Joe Young
Related articles:
Coal miner deaths rise as bosses push more speedup
No coal miner has to die!
Frame-up trial against Quebec rail workers to begin Sept. 11
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