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Latin America
Lages, Brazil city workers strike
Three thousand city workers in the southern city of Lages, Santa Catarina state, went on strike on April 8. At stake are wages. Lages municipal workers, who have not had a raise since 2020, are demanding a 12 percent wage increase, a R$ 1730 minimum monthly wage ($300 US dollars), and an updated food voucher.
Negotiations with the municipality have not made any progress. The strikers work in several key sectors including health, education, building, environment, social assistance, and housing.
On the day of the strike, workers braved the rain, and mobilized and rallied at the city’s central square.
Lages is the largest city in Santa Caterina state and is part of an industrial, timber, cattle-breeding region. The city, situated in the Santa Caterina highlands, is also a center of tourism.
This is the first contract for Lages municipal workers since 2020.
Transit workers strike in Lima, Perú
On Tuesday April 8, 25-year-old bus driver Daniel Alexis Guillermos Suárez was killed in Lima, Perú’s capital by gunmen on motorcycles. A few hours earlier another driver, 65-year-old Luis Chinchay, had been badly wounded from gunfire.
So far this year 16 drivers have been killed, all victims of mafia violence. The company that employed Guillermo Suárez appears to have known that its drivers were in danger due to extortion attempts by a criminal gang. However, it did not warn its drivers. Reacting to the news, family members and neighbors took to the streets, demanding that bus drivers drop of their passengers and join them in protest; many bus drivers walked off their jobs and joined the demonstration.
On Thursday April 10, thousands of bus drivers again went on strike; according to the Madrid Daily newspaper El País, 20,000 transit buses, belonging to 460 companies did not operate that day, the fifth work-stoppage in seven months; this time, however the employers supported the job action. The protests, six columns of marchers, surrounded the national legislature building in downtown Lima. There were several instances of police repression throughout the day.
The drivers are demanding that the Dina Boluarte administration assure their safety. Since September 2024, when the strikes began, the government has done nothing.
Speaking to the demonstrators, one legislator proposed that bus drivers use bullet-proof shields and vests; another that the government deport all foreigners. The crowd rejected both proposals.
Baluarte, in a brief message, declared that in 2 years and a few months since she took office, it was impossible to resolve a problem that has existed for “20, 30, 40 years.”
United States
Bellingham, Washington PeaceHealth workers authorize a strike
The union representing over 900 workers at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, Washington, announced April 8 that workers voted “overwhelmingly” to grant strike authorization as talks between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 1199NW and hospital management have failed to come to terms over wages, medical benefits and safety issues.
SEIU local president Jane Hopkins told Cascadia Daily News that “our goal is not to strike, but to reach an agreement.” Washington state law requires a ten-day strike notice. PeaceHealth spokesperson Amy Drury replied that the hospital “has contingency plans in place” should a strike develop.
The bargaining unit includes lab assistants, imaging technicians and service workers. The old agreement expired in November of last year and more than a dozen negotiating sessions have taken place. The two sides returned to the bargaining table this week.
PeaceHealth is also holding negotiations with two other bargaining groups while it is challenging an additional group seeking union representation.
Healthcare workers rebel against arbitration at Mayo hospital in Rochester, Minnesota
The 600 workers at Mayo Clinic Hospital Methodist Campus in Rochester, Minnesota, voted April 10 by an 87 percent margin to end their arbitration agreement and no-strike clause in future contracts. The move will not affect current negotiations by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on behalf of a variety of technicians, maintenance and other service workers.
Mayo is currently undergoing a $5 billion expansion in downtown Rochester while at the same time workers face understaffing and their wages are not keeping up with the cost of living. SEIU bargaining committee member Hallie Wallace declared, “It’s the changes in the way that Mayo Clinic is running their hospital and treating their employees over the last 10 years that has been a huge attack on the people who work here.”
The union negotiated a one-year contract last year that expired in January of this year. That agreement raised a section of workers to $20 an hour. The current round of negotiations is seeking to achieve that increase for remaining workers.
Another local of Rochester Mayo workers at St. Mary’s Hospital also labored under a no-strike agreement. They voted last year to abolish arbitration and are currently locked into arbitrated negotiations since last September.
Teamsters truck drivers strike Ohio plant over wages
Workers at the Air Products plant in Middletown, Ohio walked out on strike April 6 over wages, citing the company’s failure to provide an offer that keeps up with inflation. The 24 members of Teamsters Local 100 voted “almost unanimously” on the company’s “last best and final offer.”
Air Products management said they had “implemented contingency plans to mitigate any disruption to our production or distribution of industrial gases to our customers.” Local 100 confirmed the company has hired replacement workers.
The recent contract rejection is the second time they have voted down company proposals. The union conceded drivers want a contract that brings them up to standards of other Teamsters truck drivers.
Canada
Vancouver Island transit workers continue strike
Bus drivers, mechanics and cleaners, members of Unifor, rallied outside BC Transit offices in Victoria, British Columbia on Monday in a strike now entering its ninth week. On February 10, the transit workers, under contract to BC Transit via their Transdev employer, began a strike in pursuit of demands for improved job protections and contractual language guaranteeing proper break times and access to washrooms. The strike has closed regional service in the Cowichan Valley and also affects inter-regional routes from Cowichan and Shawinigan Lake to the provincial capital in Victoria.
Bus strikes have affected several BC Transit contracted services over the past two years. Bus drivers in Campbell River and the Comox Valley, also organized by Unifor, walked out for almost two months against their employer, Pacific Western Transportation, in late 2023 and early 2024. Transit workers in the central Fraser Valley also struck for 127 days in 2023 while Whistler region bus workers went on strike for 137 days in 2022.