CAN STRIKES BEAT THE BOSSES?

~~~ Wednesday, October 29, 7 pm ~~~ International Socialist Organization ~~~ 110 Capp Street [b/w 16th & 17th] ~~~ Room 202 CAN STRIKES BEAT THE BOSSES? "The employer-based, private for-profit health care system is a disaster for workers and their families." wrote Helen Redmond in Health Care's Deadly Crisis (Jan 2003). "Linking health care to employment leaves workers vulnerable to the mercy of the market. The sickening reality is no job, no health insurance. In virtually every union contract up for negotiation, health care costs and who is going to pay more is bitterly disputed—from dockworkers on the West Coast to hotel workers in Chicago." Today, Ms Redmond's chilling treatise is manifest in every major sector of Corporate America as employers and bosses once again sieze upon an economic downturn to wrest basic rights from workers and institute regressive wage and benefit decreases. What will it take to turn this around? 70,000 grocery workers in Southern California are striking to defend their health care. Last week, garbage workers in Chicago won a major strike and just last month, Yale workers won a dramatic increase in their wages. If these unions can fight and win, why aren't more unions taking action? In 1970, over 30% of American workers belonged to a union, today only 13% do. The only way to prevent futher erosions of wages and "benefits" is for workers to unite in the face of this immoral war on the working class and the poor. Come hear Helen Redmond discuss ideas to rebuild union power and stop this rabid oppression of the working class.