Striking Workers

The threat by Caterpillar Inc. to replace striking workers does not take away the employees' right to negotiate working conditions, say 220 of 373 callers to SUNDIAL (nearly 59 percent). Voting otherwise are 153 callers, or 41 percent."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as a scientific public opinion poll would be.

YORK, Pa. -- Mention Harley-Davidson in these parts, and you hear both pride and envy from the people of this city and region. Pride that Harley's mammoth factory here has a big part in making one of America's most iconic products. Envy that the workers who assemble the company's most popular motorcycles here have such a good deal. Now a plantwide strike has brewed resentment among some in this community, who say the workers already have good salaries and generous pension and health care benefits.

It seems almost matter of course nowadays: when a union goes on strike, the employer exercises the right under labor law to bring in replacement workers and keep the business going.The strategy has been used -- often with remarkable success -- against work forces ranging from air traffic controllers to bus drivers. The New York Daily News is now putting out a newspaper largely with replacement writers and craftsmen, more than five weeks after nine unions went on strike.When longshoremen strike the Port of Baltimore, business suffers.

Striking California supermarket workers have brought their picket signs to Washington-area Safeway Inc. stores in an attempt to steer shoppers elsewhere and bring national attention to their six-week battle with employers over escalating health care costs and wage freezes. About 50 strikers from California were joined by about 150 from West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio to target 21 Safeway stores throughout Montgomery and Prince George's counties and Washington. The pickets could eventually reach Baltimore stores, union organizers said.

PEORIA, Ill. -- Striking members of the United Automobile Workers union held firm in the nation's most bitter labor dispute yesterday, largely defying an order by Caterpillar Inc. that they return to their jobs or risk being replaced by non-union workers.Caterpillar said about 300 of the 12,600 striking workers had crossed the picket lines, while union leaders insisted the number was far lower.The union, which has been on strike for five months, said that the low number demonstrated that its members were united in wanting Caterpillar, the world's largest manufacturer of construction equipment, to match a labor agreement signed last year between the UAW and Deere & Co. But the union was far from jubilant about the day's events.

Talks yesterday between General Motors Corp. and striking workers at its Baltimore minivan assembly plant brought the two sides no closer to ending a three-week walkout, negotiators said."

Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of earth-moving equipment, has given some 13,000 striking employees an ultimatum of returning to work, thus ending a 5-month-old strike, or having their jobs awarded to other workers. The company began advertising for new employees this week. Several hundred striking workers have crossed sharply beefed-up United Auto Workers picket lines intended to discourage more of its members from crossing. Strike leaders and some in the media say the ultimatum could be a milestone tactic affecting many other labor negotiations this decade.

Striking workers at the G. Heileman Brewing Co. are scheduled to vote tomorrow on a contract proposal that could end a three-week walkout at the plant on Hollins Ferry Road.James Glass, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 1010, which represents the 300 striking workers, said the company has met the workers' wage demands and has withdrawn conditions the workers found unacceptable.The workers, who were being paid about $13.30 an hour, went on strike July 1 after rejecting the company's contract proposal.

Striking workers rejected Poly-Seal Corp.'s latest contract offer yesterday, and the maker of plastic caps and container seals said it will begin hiring permanent replacements."

DOES THE RIGHT to strike include the right to succeed in a strike? Put another way: If companies can legally replace striking workers, does the right to strike carry any muscle at all?However one answers those questions, it is clear there is no guarantee of a painless passage from one economic era to another. The country is entering, often uneasily, a global economy in which the power of unions is greatly diminished, while employers insist they need maximum flexibility in order to compete.

THIS STRIKE didn't have to happen. A little communication from Domino Sugar management, a little patience from the union, a little good faith from one party or the other and the holidays would have been plenty sweeter for everybody. The two sides are close enough to kiss. The union seems ready to agree to what the company wants -- barring one thing. That one thing is an easy, painless concession for managers, if they're dealing as fairly as they claim. Both parties waited for a phone call that neither was willing to make.

Keith Cyphers, one of the thousands of Verizon Communications Inc. workers out on strike for more than two weeks, earned an honest day's pay yesterday, back on the job repairing telephone lines, and was downright happy to do it. The Belcamp resident, a cable splicer in the Baltimore area for the phone giant, was among the first of the thousands of Communications Workers of America members to return to the job yesterday after a 17-day strike ended at...

DETROIT -- Two crippling strikes against General Motors Corp. entered their fourth week yesterday with no end in sight as analysts began tallying the mounting costs to the world's largest automaker.James Irwin, an analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co., said the strikes have cost the company $936 million in second-quarter profit.He lowered his GM earnings estimate for the quarter to $1 a diluted share from his previous $2.40 a share. Other analysts were preparing to cut their estimates as well.Talks resumed yesterday, but there were no reports of progress.

In an age of weakened unions, increased foreign competition and a continuing shift from manufacturing to service jobs, it has become crucial for labor and management to solve differences amicably, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board said yesterday."

Two weeks after the Teamsters and the United Parcel Service of America Inc. reached an accord to end a 15-day strike, local union members allege that the company has started a harassment campaign to punish strikers -- a charge UPS denies.Leaders of Teamsters Local 355 in Baltimore and Local 639 in Washington said about eight workers have been fired for strike-related activities and dozens more docked a day's pay for not keeping up with the company's appearance code.UPS acknowledges the terminations, but not the appearance infractions.

It was a week to retrench and regroup.With hopes of an easy end to the 4-week-old dispute between striking Teamsters and Giant Food Inc. dashed, both sides appeared to be digging in for a long struggle.No negotiations were scheduled, and neither side discussed restarting the talks.Instead, Roger D. Olson, Giant's chief negotiator, was scheduling interviews with the press, not with the Teamsters. The company began arranging regular deliveries of goods to its stores where bare shelves showed the strain of the strike.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton and organized labor have suffered a stinging defeat with the Senate rejection of legislation that would have prevented American corporations from firing striking union members and permanently replacing them with nonunion workers.Concluding one of the fiercest political battles between management and labor in a generation, union supporters in the Senate failed by a 53-47 vote yesterday to gain the three-fifths majority needed to break a Republican filibuster on the striker replacement measure.

DOES THE RIGHT to strike include the right to succeed in a strike? Put another way: If companies can legally replace striking workers, does the right to strike carry any muscle at all?However one answers those questions, it is clear there is no guarantee of a painless passage from one economic era to another. The country is entering, often uneasily, a global economy in which the power of unions is greatly diminished, while employers insist they need maximum flexibility in order to compete.

Two masked men with semiautomatic handguns robbed a pizza shop in Columbia's Owen Brown village and assaulted one of the employees Wednesday night, Howard County police said.The robbers entered the Pizza Bolis in the 7100 block of Oakland Mills Road with guns drawn about 11:10 p.m. and announced a robbery to the five employees there, police said.One robber struck an employee on the head and forced the store manager to open the cash register, police said.The robbers ran from the store with an undisclosed amount of cash.