Striking Wabtec workers bring their fight, and solidarity, to Pittsburgh

For an hour or so late Thursday afternoon, about 250 people stood in the summer heat on Isabella Street on Pittsburgh’s North Shore and listened to union members talk about struggles with their employers.

They heard from members of two United Electrical Workers locals in Erie who are on strike at Wabtec Corp.’s plant there over a number of issues, including affordable health care, livable wages and the right to strike over grievances. Those workers build locomotives for Wabtec, headquartered in a glass and steel office building on Isabella, just down the block from PNC Park.

Some speakers decried corporate greed, evidenced by Wabtec’s $750 million share buyback program and CEO Rafael Santana’s $11 million compensation package. They voiced frustration over the company’s stalling tactics at the bargaining table and Wabtec’s hiring of scab labor.

Often, speakers would stop to lead chants of “Who are we? UE!” And there was lots of talk about solidarity — with Post-Gazette workers, who’ve been on strike for nine months, and with striking Starbucks employees. Members of both unions attended the rally.

But it was a pastor who gave the day some historical context and brought a truly universal theme to the gathering. The Rev. Richard Freeman, president of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network, reminded the workers of the hundreds of Memphis sanitation workers who went on strike in February 1968. Those workers, African American men, wore signs and placards proclaiming, “I am a man.”

“I want to echo the gallantry of those men for you today,” Freeman said to the crowd, “because each of you should have a placard on your chest that simply says, ‘ I am human.’”

“I am human,” he repeated. “I am human.”

By then the crowd had caught on, and it joined in, “I am human.”

Freeman then turned to the tall office building behind him. “Tell Wabtec,” he said. And the voices joined together, their loud message “I am human” bouncing off the glass and echoing down Isabella Street.

Thursday marked 14 days since the beginning of the Wabtec strike, which affects 1,400 workers from locals 506 and 618 who build locomotives in Erie. Bryan Pietrzak, financial secretary for UE Local 506, outlined some of the main issues:

• The workers demand family sustaining wages. New hires earn so little that many are eligible for government assistance, he said. “How would you like it if your sons and daughters were working next to me and making $10 to $15 an hour, doing the same exact job I am?” he asked the crowd. “That’s what you call going to the bottom in wages.”
• Wabtec’s last offer gives the company the “right to diminish our health care anytime without any caps on the costs of anything,” Pietrzak said, and that’s unacceptable to union members.
• The union wants a restoration of its right to strike over grievances. “We want some kind of accountability with this company,” he said. “They’re sending every grievance to arbitration. We have 68 in the queue.” That’s way out of line with past owner GE, which sent only a handful to arbitration each year, Pietrzak said. Each arbitration costs the union about $9,0000. “Their goal is to bankrupt the union,” he said.
• The union wants Wabtec to build green locomotives “that are essential to our country’s climate future.” Such a move would bring thousands of jobs to Erie and the surrounding area. “The union is trying to bring work into the plant, and [Wabtec] said it’s a hard ‘no,’” Pietrzak said.

“It breaks my heart to have to be here today,” Pietrzak told the crowd. “There are 1,400 families affected by boardroom greed.” He said the union was fighting an onslaught of “union-busting tactics from the notorious Jones Day law firm.”

Natalie Duleba, a striking newsroom worker at the Post-Gazette, told the crowd her union was fighting for many of the same reasons as the UE workers — affordable health care, fair pay and respect from their employers.

“These companies think they can break us with their money,” she said. “They can’t. They haven’t done it to us for nine months,  and they haven’t done it to you for two weeks. We’ll stay on the line until we get what we demand.”

Solidarity, she said, is more than just a slogan.

“The longer I’ve been on the line, the more I realize no fight is won alone,” Duleba said. “It’s not one individual, not one union, it’s everybody in the community. It’s all our brothers and sisters in other unions that make us strong and keep our fight going.”

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, who represents Pennsylvania’s 12th District, noted that companies like Wabetc “are never going to move unless we the people move them. When we show up for our union brothers and sisters, we’re sending a message to Wabetec and every corporation and company in Western Pennsylvania that Pittsburgh is a union town, and that we will fight and we will stand for workers in Erie, and for workers all over the country.”

She then tied the Erie strike to workers’ actions in Pittsburgh.

“We’re going to let them know how strong our movement really is, from our coffee workers to our Post-Gazette workers and everybody else in between,” she said. “Solidarity is what’s going to keep us strong.” 

The Pittsburgh Labor Choir, left, and Mike Stout, right, lead the crowd on labor songs. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Union Progress)

Alison Obinoni of UE Local 612 said unions have always fought for changes that benefit all workers.

“We’re not going to passively sit by,” she said. “We are not going to wait and see what somebody else decides to do. We aren’t going to wait for change that trickles down decades from now. We are going to lead the fight for change that needs to happen no matter where you work or what you do.”

UE Eastern Region President George Waksmunski reported that, despite Wabtec’s tactic of hiring scab labor and sending letters to members detailing how they can resign from the union, the strike “is holding strong. We’ve got good support from the community, from our politicians, restaurants, bars, stores, from the police. The members are determined and proud and pissed off from being pissed on, and they’re not going to back down.”