USW@Work: Volume 17, Issue 3
FEATURES
Solidarity in Paper
Local 1327 Vice President Jennifer Beard works in a Domtar laboratory, testing water samples each day to ensure that the mill remains in compliance with environmental regulations.
She said that the USW membership and the company share a desire to make sure that the mill, which opened in 1968, is sustainable so that it thrives for future generations of Ashdown workers.
“Whatever happens, we’re going to be there for them,” she said of her USW siblings and families in Ashdown. “Our mill keeps money flowing in this community.”
Continue reading on page 4.
Bus Drivers Fight Back
School bus drivers who are members of a small but mighty Michigan unit of the USW soundly defeated an effort to outsource their jobs and bust their union.
This spring, the Bay City Public Schools notified USW Local 7380, which represents the district’s 26 bus drivers, that it would be exploring the possibility of privatizing transportation services and contracting out their work to a for-profit company.
That idea did not sit well with the unionized drivers, many of whom had long records of service and built close relationships with families and children in the community.
Continue reading on page 10.
After 80 Years, Still Stronger Together
By 1942, members of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee had struggled for six years to lay the foundation for a new labor organization that would act as a powerful collective voice to fight for better lives for hundreds of thousands of workers across North America.
Philip Murray, immigrant, coal miner and labor activist, helped to lead that organizing drive, envisioning an alliance that would speak on behalf of every iron and steel worker in the United States and Canada, one that would challenge the status quo and lift up workers and their families – “not today, but down, down, down through the years to come.”
Murray’s vision became a reality, but neither he nor the 1,700 delegates who elected him the first president of the USW could have imagined what the institution they founded would look like 80 years later.
Continue reading on page 12