Labor Update:  Children of Locked Out Workers Grateful for Food

Keokuk, Iowa – The 48G Union families are nearing the eighth month of their lockout from Roquette America, Inc. 

Worker Solidarity Committee-Iowa/An Injury to One is an Injury to All: More than just a slogan
wsciowa.wordpress.com/

The Worker Solidarity Committee (WSC)…stands in solidarity with our union brothers and sisters of BCTGM Local 48G in Keokuk, Iowa who have been locked out by Roquette. For six months the Keokuk workers have done their duty by hanging tough and defending their union and the labor movement against Roquette’s union-busting onslaught. The WSC feels it is now time to do our duty by supporting them with the limited means our small committee possesses.  The WSC is therefore donating a modest $500 through Helping Hands for the Communities to aid the locked-out BCTGM workers.

Our committee is also pledging a monthly donation determined by our limited resources as long as the lockout continues.  We urge all Eastern Iowa labor/community organizations and individual workers to support the Keokuk workers.  If Roquette wins this will only encourage similar union-busting efforts.  For over two years now UFCW Local 86D in Muscatine also has been locked out.

The WSC would like to emphasize that financial support is only one aspect of solidarity and that it is absolutely crucial that the labor movement mobilize for future rallies.

The private sector unions are composed of less than 7% of the private sector workforce, down from a peak of over 35%.   The public sector is the only major section of the working class still organized and the unions there are under heavy attack.  It is time to turn this around and revive the traditions of labor solidarity, leadership and militancy that built the unions.

The industrial unions were built through mass picket lines, opposition to the bosses courts/laws, sit-down strikes, flying picket squads and unemployed leagues.  In short, through the methods of class struggle.  The signature of the CIO that gave birth to the modern labor movement was the sit-down strike.  This was labor in its ascendancy.  The signature of the AFL-CIO is vote Democrat in the period of labor’s decline.  We need to build a fighting, class struggle leadership within the labor movement that will play to win.

Victory to BCTGM 48G in Keokuk!  Make this a fight for all of American Labor!

Worker Solidarity Committee (Eastern Iowa)

The Worker Solidarity Coordinating Committee grew out of the spirit of Wisconsin and the worldwide rebellions of 2011.  We are an independent, class struggle activist committee that seeks to build a united front of the organized working-class, allied with the unorganized, the unemployed, students and the broader community, to defend the interests of the working-class, Blacks, Latinos, immigrants, women and gays/lesbians: all the oppressed.  We stand by the principle that “An injury to one is an injury to all!”

Email: wscciowa@gmail.com          Website: wsciowa.wordpress.com/

Food
donations may be taken to the Keokuk Labor Temple at 301 Blondeau St.,
or Delightfully Tasteful Bistro, River City Mall, Keokuk.

Send checks (with “48G Union” on check memo to) Hamilton Ministerial Association, Bethel Presbyterian Church, 1421 Broadway St., Hamilton IL 62341 or call 217-847-2516.