With the temperature well below zero, members of AFSCME Local 66 are walking a picketline at Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD), the agency that provides sewage treatment services in Duluth.
Eighty-five workers went on strike Tuesday to preserve their jobs and health care benefits. They have been without a contract for 11 months. The union's negotiating team said it went into negotiations 20 months ago seeking no changes in the contract other than a modest wage increase but said management sought a number of concessions, including doubling the cost of health insurance to employees.
Job security is the dominant issue, the strikers said. In the past few years the number of employees at WLSSD has shrunk from 129 to 85 in part because certain services have been shut down and others have been contracted out.
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WLSSD is insisting that it have the right to retain temporary emnployees while laying off permanent full-time employees and unilaterally create part-time positions from current full-time positions.
Local 66 accuses WLSSD Executive Director Kurt Soderberg of engaging in an unprecedented level of unionbusting, especially for a public employer.
Soderberg has been quoted as saying he has prepared for this strike since July. Days before the strike he hired the Detroit strike security firm of Huffmaster, which drives a van ferrying scab replacement employees in and out of the facility in a van with paper taped across its windows.
Also days before the strike, Soderberg had a chainlink fence installed around the plant at a cost of at least $20,000, according to the union. After the strike started, locks were changed on all the doors.
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All of the union members are participating in the strike and no one has crossed. Support from the community also has been positive, said Alex Livadaros, president of the bargaining unit and head of the negotiating team.
"People understand that this strike is over the issues that face many workers," he said. "Job security and protecting our family medical insurance."
"The strike will end eventually," Livadaros added, "and we will be here one day longer."
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With the temperature well below zero, members of AFSCME Local 66 are walking a picketline at Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD), the agency that provides sewage treatment services in Duluth.
Eighty-five workers went on strike Tuesday to preserve their jobs and health care benefits. They have been without a contract for 11 months. The union’s negotiating team said it went into negotiations 20 months ago seeking no changes in the contract other than a modest wage increase but said management sought a number of concessions, including doubling the cost of health insurance to employees.
Job security is the dominant issue, the strikers said. In the past few years the number of employees at WLSSD has shrunk from 129 to 85 in part because certain services have been shut down and others have been contracted out.
online pharmacy buy neurontin without prescription with best prices today in the USA
WLSSD is insisting that it have the right to retain temporary emnployees while laying off permanent full-time employees and unilaterally create part-time positions from current full-time positions.
Local 66 accuses WLSSD Executive Director Kurt Soderberg of engaging in an unprecedented level of unionbusting, especially for a public employer.
Soderberg has been quoted as saying he has prepared for this strike since July. Days before the strike he hired the Detroit strike security firm of Huffmaster, which drives a van ferrying scab replacement employees in and out of the facility in a van with paper taped across its windows.
Also days before the strike, Soderberg had a chainlink fence installed around the plant at a cost of at least $20,000, according to the union. After the strike started, locks were changed on all the doors.
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buy minocin online https://southjerseycopingclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/minocin.html no prescription
All of the union members are participating in the strike and no one has crossed. Support from the community also has been positive, said Alex Livadaros, president of the bargaining unit and head of the negotiating team.
“People understand that this strike is over the issues that face many workers,” he said. “Job security and protecting our family medical insurance.”
“The strike will end eventually,” Livadaros added, “and we will be here one day longer.”