Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Bridge honors working-class hero California crossing bearing name of celebrated ironworker opens soon USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20031105/5651176s.htm By John Ritter, USA Today November 5, 2003 Crockett, Calif. -- When it's time to name a bridge, politicians, war heroes and geography usually win out. Joe Everyman is seldom in the running. Until now. In what's thought to be the nation's first major bridge honoring a blue-collar worker, a new span across a strait that empties into San Francisco Bay will be christened the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge. A legendary ironworker, survivor of a harrowing fall from the Golden Gate Bridge more than 60 years ago, Zampa will take his place alongside presidents, generals and mighty rivers....   Source: UC Berkeley in the News 4:12:09 PM    comment []

Health care fight- Insurance at center of grocery strikes San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/05/BUGV72Q9E21.DTL&;type=printable George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer November 5, 2003 In Southern California, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio, 85,000 grocery workers are either on strike or locked out of their jobs, all of them at odds with employers over the burden of mounting health care costs. The dispute, primarily affecting the 70,000 union grocery workers on picket lines in Southern California, has the complete attention of the AFL-CIO, because the resolution of this key struggle likely will serve as precedent for future labor contract negotiations in which health care is the centerpiece.... "Wal-Mart is a very real threat, a steamroller,'' said HARLEY SHAIKEN, A SPECIALIST IN LABOR AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AT UC BERKELEY. "They have not only much lower wage cost, but they have economies of scale and effective ways of operating.'' But the real test in this labor struggle, said Shaiken, is the one involving will and staying power on the picket lines. The union has the support of the AFL-CIO, whose president, John Sweeney, last week established a national strike fund for the grocery workers and asked its member unions for contributions.... The union has the advantage, too, of relationships with customers, said UC BERKELEY'S SHAIKEN. "The personal contact has in some cases extended for years -- these grocery store workers may be the last people you see at the end of the day, and you look in the person's eye for a certain relationship- building,'' said Shaiken. The closest analogy to the grocery labor dispute would be the Brotherhood of Teamsters' strike against UPS in 1997 in which there was widespread public support for the workers because they are part of everyday business life....   Source: UC Berkeley in the News 4:10:55 PM    comment []

Copyright 2003 Lincoln Cushing