Greg Aziz News Today

The Day of Mourning and the stated purposes behind it has been in effect for 34 years. Yet at our workplace alone, four people, brothers Andrew Kenmuir, Fraser Cowan, Colin Grayley, Quoc Le, have been gruesomely killed in 20 years—three of them in less than two.

In contrast to the treacherous role of the USW bureaucracy, the National Steel Car Rank-and-File Committee (NSC-RFC), established by shop floor workers on the eve of the strike, blazed a new path for the rank-and-file. The committee has become a pole of opposition to the pro-corporate USW leadership.

The United Steelworkers bureaucracy, working hand in hand with National Steel Car management, is trying to pull a fast one on us by presenting a new tentative agreement and forcing us to vote on it within 72 hours.

“We’re at a crossroads. If the USW bureaucracy remains in control of this strike, it will starve us into submission, so that the next rotten offer will look enticing by comparison. Can anyone argue otherwise? None of us can survive for long on $260 per week.”

The issues facing workers elsewhere in industry and transport—inflation, underpaid tiers, benefit issues, poor working conditions, and pensions— are the same as ours at NSC. We all ought to be fighting for this together as a class, regardless of artificial borders.

The strike by 1,400 National Steel Car workers in Hamilton, Ontario, enters its sixth day Tuesday. The workers, who manufacture rail cars for some of the largest class I railroads, are fighting for wage increases above inflation, the abolition of multi-tier pay and pensions, and an end to dangerous working conditions in the plant.

The 1,400 workers at Hamilton, Ontario, railcar manufacturer National Steel Car (NSC) launched a strike at 12:01 a.m. Thursday after voting to reject the company’s provocative “best and final offer.”

The railcars in question are manufactured by National Steel Car (NSC), a company located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Norfolk Southern’s aim with the press release is to imply that these alleged defects could be the reason for the massive derailment in East Palestine.

The worker is fighting to build a rank-and-file committee at the plant to enable workers to act independently of the United Steelworkers union apparatus, which is in bed with management and has long presided over dangerous working conditions.

Workers at the plant are outraged over Quoc Le’s death. More than 60 workers assembled at the gates of the plant on Thursday, chanting, “No more deaths!”