Workers

 
Photos by Kathleen Foley. Video by Tim Moyer.
On Wednesday July 22, over 300 taxi drivers, along with allies from Media Mobilizing Project, Workers United, Philadelphia Student Union, Casino Free Philadelphia, Jobs with Justice and IWW rallied at 3101 Market Street outside the headquarters of the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA).  The rally was focused on a list of demands taxi drivers have for the PPA:

• Fair parking ticket practices and an end to drive-by ticketing practices,
• A lowering of new PPA fees where, for instance, it now costs drivers $200 to put a new taxi on the road, and
• A return of all credit card money that has been misplaced from drivers' accounts through the PPA run credit card system.

 
The Unified Taxi Workers Alliance (UTWA) will stage a rally this Wednesday, July 22nd, from 11 am to 1pm at 3101 Market Street, in front of the Philadelphia Parking Authority' headquarters. The demonstration will be to demand fair parking ticket practices, a reduction in the outrageous new fees imposed on the taxi industry, and the return of funds that were wrongly withheld from drivers when doing credit card transactions.

Since January, nurses inside Hahnemann Hospital in Center City Philadelphia have been working towards unionizing. Despite the union-busting tactics employed by Tenet management, nurses have organized in support of joining Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP).

Currently, Hahnemann workers are awaiting a decision from the National Labor Relations Board to find out if the results of their recent union vote will be counted.

In the midst of this uncertainty, one nurse agreed to an anonymous interview with Labor Justice Radio. He explains the events that led up to the union election and talks about what is at stake for nurses like himself.

With job loss and unemployment steadily on the rise throughout Pennsylvania, Express Scripts, a Fortune 500 company that brought in $799 million in profit last year, has threatened to shut down its Bensalem facility if workers refuse to accept significant cuts in wages and health care benefits. The jobs of over 1,000 pharmacists, pharmacy techs, customer service reps and production workers in Bensalem are on the line.

 
In late April, the Baltimore based human rights organizing group United Workers Association held a major human rights march and protest to announce the worst of the worst of the employers in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

In this interview, Darnell Dixon details the working conditions he faces as a janitor in a center city building in Philadelphia. Mr Dixon explains that the company he currently works for recently established a series of new rules which are clearly violations of Darnell and other workers' human rights. Some of the rules these workers are forced to endure include: no talking on the job, no humming on the job, no pausing for a drink water, and no complaining about lack of ventilation. The broad edict for the workers is that they must be continuously cleaning and continuously moving.

On Friday, May 1, an estimated over 1000 people from across Vermont, including nurses and other healthcare workers, descended on the State Capital building in Montpelier for a "Healthcare is a Human Right" rally.

Escuacha esta entrevista con Cruz Salucio miembro de la Coalicion de Trabajadores de Immokalee (CIW) y locutor de su estacion de radio, Radio Conciencia.  El CIW se organiza en la defensa de los derechos humanos de los trabajadores que pisca tomates en el sur de Florida.