Strikers voice anger over worker's suicide

By Roy Rydell

BROOKLYN, N.Y.- Members of Local 1814 of the International Longshoremen's Association, on strike against Domino Sugar, expressed shock and outrage at tlast week's suicide of John Alschen, an iron worker at the plant.

Alschen, a Russian immigrant, had worked as an iron worker for 22 years at a shop in New Jersey. When he went to work at Domino he was 52.

Melvin Jackson, a long-time pipefitter at Domino, told me that he had often worked alongside Alschen on maintenance in the plant. He said Alschen was a good worker and a fine union man.

He said Alschen had told him that when he was very young, his parents had hidden out from Nazi troops in the woods, eating bark from the trees.

Jackson told me about the plan of Domino's British-based parent company, Tate and Lyle, to eliminate jobs by a program that combines his pipefitting job, for example, with that of an iron worker, a machinist and a rigger.

One of the main concerns of the strikers is the company's proposal to eliminate 100 jobs. Alschen had feared, with 10 years at Domino, that his job would be eliminated because he was low in seniority.

Other company proposals include 12-hour working days, allowing supervisors to do jobs usually done by union members (effectively eliminating overtime), as well as the right to unrestricted contracting out.

After Alschen did his six-hour picket duty on Dec. 15, he went home and killed himself.

Strikers on the picket line said their unemployment insurance would soon run out and things would really get tougher, especially with Christmas coming up.

Last week there were a few negotiating sessions but the company is still hanging tough. Domino's plant in Baltimore, under contract to the Food and Commercial Workers union, recently signed a contract that calls for wage increases and improvements in the pension and welfare plan. But the talk is that the union agreed to a staggered workweek.

On the picket line in Brooklyn, the mood was one of sadness over Alschen's death, but also of determination not to give in to the company.

"All we can do is keep fighting," said Jackson.

The pickets have had previous strike experience at the plant and spoke with enthusiasm about the defeat the World Trade Organization had suffered in Seattle. The unions in the sugar industry have a long history of international solidarity and the AFL-CIO's opposition to the WTO is seen as part of that international solidarity.

Local 1814 has been appealing for more of this solidarity from the rest of the New York labor movement and has been distributing leaflets at many trade -union rallies in the New York area.

Their leaflets ask that expressions of solidarity be sent to Joe Crimi, vice-president of Local 1814 ILA, 70 20th Street, Brooklyn NY 11232.

On Nov. 19 the New York City Council passed a resolution boycotting all Domino Sugar products.

It took the suicide of John Alschen to get decent coverage of the strike in the capitalist press. The Daily News carried its story on page four and television's Channel 11 showed up at the picket line to interview some of the strikers.