A few days go I wrote a diary available here urging Kossaks to Support United Steelworkers union (USW) work stoppage at US refineries.
Today, Feb.7th, there is an update worth noting: The United Steelworkers (USW) today said that workers at BP’s Whiting, Indiana and Toledo, Ohio refineries are joining the union’s unfair labor practice strike against the oil industry that began on Feb. 1, after the companies failed to address serious concerns regarding the health and safety of workers and their communities.
United Steelworkers is North America’s largest industrial union. The USW is 1.2 million members and retirees strong in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. USW proudly represents men and women who work in nearly every industry there is. USW members are leaders in your communities, in your work places, in our governments and more. USW has a presence in the United Kingdom, Ireland, England, Scotland, Mexico and many other places around the world.
Steve Garey, president of USW local 12-591 (Mount Vernon, WA) had
a 30 minute interview Feb. 6th (go to 09:00 to 39:03) on USW workers, decision to strike, how industry undermines worker safety and puts local communities at risk. (more:
USW local 12-591, Mount Vernon, WA)
POTUS Obama can agitate & reign down the full recognition of the validity & the urgency that union(s) legitimately have in this and myriad other matters.
Recovering Community Organizer Obama (who began in the rectory of Holy Rosary Church, 113th Street in Chicago "Roseland" neighborhood across the street from Palmer Park) knows well how to, and should, be weighing in on the USW side of the dispute with Royal Dutch Shell transnational and others companies which seem to me to be not in the least concerned about the common good of We The People of the United States.
Mr. Obama can rally influence from Presidents Carter and Clinton, Senator/Secretary Clinton, a tidal wave of pulpit priests/ministers/imams/rabbis and "Bishops" from all faiths (including ones not recognized as "Christian"). Vice-POTUS Biden should also be rattling cages on behalf of the common folk who are affected by the arrogant refusals of corporations Royal Dutch Shell now leads.
Check out the history by Jonathan Grossman on the U.S. Dept of Labor website (as Historian for the D.o.L. in Monthly Labor Review of Oct. 1975) who told history of how President Theodore Roosevelt acted on and after 3 Oct. 1902 during a great strike in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania which threatened a coal famine. POTUS T. Roosevelt feared "untold misery . . . with the certainty of riots which might develop into social war." Grossman wrote, "Although he had no legal right to intervene, he sent telegrams to both sides summoning them to Washington to discuss the problem." Teddy R. also organized past-POTUS Grover Cleveland and Catholic leaders to enter the fray. Roosevelt himself wrote about John Mitchell, United Mine Workers (UMW) president, who "behaved with great dignity and moderation. The operators, on the contrary, showed extraordinary stupidity and bad temper." Grossman cites Samuel Gompers, near the end of his long career, who wrote:
Several times I have been asked what in my opinion was the most important single incident in the labor movement in the United States and I have invariably replied: the strike of the anthracite miners in Pennsylvania ... from then on the miners became not merely human machines to produce coal but men and citizens.... The strike was evidence of the effectiveness of trade unions ....
Mr. Obama must not let our U.S. workforce and the corporate oligarchy sink us back to the stone age revered by POTUS Reagan who promoted the tradition(s) of
POTUS Andrew Jackson who became a strikebreaker in 1834 sending troops to the construction sites of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
Kossaks who respond to this diary, Thank You (in advance) for all your thoughtful comments and for your good-hearted work to further a return to fair dealings that is today being led by the United Steelworkers union (USW) through work stoppage at US refineries and by other means it is using for the good of us all!
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