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Vol. 82/No. 1 January 1, 2018
—ON THE PICKET LINE—
Militant/Baskaran Appu
Members of Rail and Maritime Transport Union picket Papakura Train
Station in Auckland, New Zealand, during one-day strike Dec. 8 to
protest plans to cut train crew to one worker.
Rail workers fight bosses’ plan for driver-only trains
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Some 500 members of the Rail and Maritime
Transport Union held a one-day strike and picketed stations here Dec. 8
to protest company plans to introduce one-person passenger train “crews.”
“Safety of staff and the public is paramount in this fight,” Stuart
Johnstone, the union’s northern region organizer, told the Militant.
Currently each train has both a driver and a conductor, called a train
manager, with the latter responsible for monitoring door operation and
passengers, and for medical emergencies. Transdev Auckland, which
operates the trains for Auckland Transport, plans to eliminate permanent
on-board crew members. Some 170 conductors and 40 ticketing inspectors
will be laid off.
“This will put an immense amount of pressure on the driver to safely
operate the train alone,” said Johnstone.
As passersby expressed support for workers at the Papakura Train Station
picket line, they gave us examples of how on-board workers are essential
for safety. One train manager recently saved a crawling baby from being
crushed, stopping train doors closing on it.
“The company’s perception of safety is different to workers,” said Paul
Stirling, a train driver from another company, who came to show support.
“Their view is purely on economics.”
Auckland Transport has said they will deploy up to 230 “transport
officers” to patrol the rail, bus and ferry networks when driver-only
trains are implemented. But, workers said, that won’t make them safer.
There will still be only one person on the train, the driver.
In November workers at Transdev Wellington, a sister company, went on
strike over demands to slash their working conditions and cut overtime
rates for weekend work.
— Baskaran Appu
Kazakh miners organize sit-in to fight for wages, safety
Some 680 coal miners in north-central Kazakhstan stayed underground Dec.
11-14, halting production and occupying the ArcelorMittal mine in
Shakhtinsk to press their fight for wages, safety and other demands. The
miners, members of the Trade Union of Mining and Metallurgy Workers of
the Republic of Kazakhstan, extended their action from four to eight
ArcelorMittal mines Dec. 12. Family members and other miners brought
food and clothing, sending them down to the mine floor to sustain the
striking workers.
Kazakhstan authorities declared the strike illegal but agreed not to
prosecute miners on their return to work.
The unionists won a 30 percent wage increase for underground miners.
Negotiations will continue on wage rates for surface workers and on the
miners’ demands for a reduction in the retirement age, additional safety
measures and an improvement in the infrastructure of their hometown
Shakhtinsk.
In August three miners died after a gas leak at the Qazaqstan mine
there. “The technical equipment at the mine is lagging behind the
Russian and Ukrainian mines,” stated Marat Mirgayazov, chairman of the
Mineworkers’ Union Korgau at ArcelorMittal Temirtau.
The sit-in was the country’s largest strike since cops shot dead 14
people during an oil workers strike in 2011.
In January courts shut down the Confederation of Independent Trade
Unions of Kazakhstan. In July the confederation’s president, Larisa
Kharkova, was convicted on frame-up charges of “abuse of office” and
banned from holding any position in a trade union, for five years.
— Terry Evans
Related articles:
Teva workers in Israel join together to fight layoffs
Migrant workers in Beijing mobilize to protest evictions
Quebec: Frame-up case against rail workers unravels
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