wildcat strikes
Articles about unofficial industrial action, or "wildcat" strikes.
Wildcat: Dodge Truck June 1974
Detailed article by participants and eyewitnesses about the wildcat strike at the Chrysler truck plant in Michigan, 1974, and the roles of the workers, the union and the left.
Introduction
Three dead in garment workers' clashes - unions promised new role
The latest clashes in the highly charged arena of the Bangladeshi garment industry...
Tongi, an industrial city located 15 miles (24 km) north of Dhaka; early last Saturday morning (31st Oct) several hundred workers turned up at the gates of the Nippon Garment Factory at Ershad Nagar - expecting to work and to receive wage arrears owed them.
Account of a well-prepared wildcat strike
Nick, an assembly line worker, recounts sabotage and a walkout at his factory when the workers contract expired.
I worked for a year in a typical World War II-style plant with a saw tooth tin roof and smoke stacks billowing oily gray smoke. There were 1,000 of us poor bastards working there, doing mind less arm and wrist repetitions thousands of times per day, producing a basic industrial product.
Wildcat strike in Hartlepool
Hundreds of workers walked out in the morning of 12 October at an offshore construction yard in a dispute over union recognition.
The Peterlee mail reported that workers want Unite to be given official recognition at the Heerema site in Greenland Road, in Hartlepool, but talks are believed to have stalled in the last few weeks.
That led to tradesmen calling a wildcat strike this morning with an estimated 200 workers standing outside the gates of the site.
Solidarity walkout by France telecom workers
Workers spontaneously walked out today in solidarity with a colleague who committed suicide.
There were a series of walkouts across the country today as workers showed solidarity with their dead colleagues and protested against the work pressures that lead to his death.
Racist comments spark walkout, sit-in at chicken proccessing plant
Racist comments by security guards have led to wildcat action at Two Sisters Foods in Smethwick, UK.
Workers at a Black Country food processing firm are hailed the success of an unofficial walkout, after management sacked a security guard accused of making racist comments and agreed to come to the negotiating table.
More than 100 staff at Smethwick-based Two Sisters Foods staged a wildcat strike and police were called as their protest threatened to get out of hand.
Postal strike: update on Scotland
Postal workers have ended unofficial strike action in Dundee as staff elsewhere in Scotland stage the latest in a series of official stoppages.
About 125 workers at the Dundee East office walked out for 24 hours in protest at the sacking of a colleague. Delivery offices in Stirling, Anstruther, Irvine and Lochgelly are affected by the latest official action.
Sydney bus drivers defy union and take wildcat action
A six-hour strike by 130 bus drivers in western Sydney on Monday morning, carried out in defiance of their union, has produced furious denunciations in the media and from an industrial court judge. The drivers walked out at the Busways Blacktown depot at 3.30 a.m. against the imposition of new timetables that would impose shorter times for routes.
Drivers said that the timetables, due to commence in October, would be impossible to meet, forcing them to run late, which would not only inconvenience and anger passengers but cut short the drivers’ break periods. The workers said they would be under enormous pressure to drive over the speed limit.
Cairo bus strike ends
Cairo bus strike ends after the government gave in to most demands.
Many of Cairo’s public busses have disappeared from the capital city’s street over the past two days. Drivers, ticket-takers and mechanics from 14 of the 19 bus garages in Cairo and Giza governorates are on strike demanding improved working conditions and awaiting tangible responses from the authorities.
Tanta Flax Company strike marks 80th day
Around 200 workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company staged a demonstration outside the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration in Cairo today, marking the 80th day of their strike, demanding the re-nationalization of their company. Hundreds of their colleagues back in the Nile Delta have also announced their intention to launch a hunger strike as of tomorrow.
Some 1,000 workers at the company had started their strike on 31 May, raising demands that include reinstating nine co-workers sacked under the pretext of "inciting labor unrest," the provision of workers' profit-sharing which has been overdue for three years, together with the incentive pay withheld since 2003.
