Year-long lock-out sparks protests in US and Taiwan

Unions are holding coordinated rallies in America and Taiwan to mark the first anniversary of a lock-out in the USA.

The demos are part of global union action to secure basic labour rights for workers at a plant in Ponca City, Oklahoma. On 8 May 2001, Taiwanese-controlled Continental Carbon announced that it was locking out its workers there until they agreed to huge cuts in wages and benefits. The lock-out continues to this day. The plant makes carbon black for the tyre industry.

In a one-mile march through Ponca City today, the local community will gather to recognise workers and their families who have survived a year of hardship. The march will continue out of town to the Continental Carbon plant, where there will be a protest and a release of balloons. The event is backed by PACE, the American paper, allied industrial, chemical and energy workers' union. Speakers at today's rally include Ponca City Mayor Tom Leonard, Oklahoma State Senator Paul Muegge, PACE Region Seven Vice-President Lloyd Walters and Jim Curry, who is the Oklahoma State President of the US national labour federation AFL-CIO.

"The entire community is standing by us in our efforts to end this lock-out," said Todd Carlson, spokesperson for the locked out workers.

He praised efforts by the community, including a public hearing this April which blasted the economic and environmental hardship that the company had inflicted on workers and residents. Various protests have been raised about the plant's environmental impact.

Carlson said that workers had gathered over 5,000 signatures from residents on a petition calling for an end to the lock-out. He and fellow workers intend to deliver this to authorities in Taiwan next month.

"The community is fed up," Carlson pointed out. "Continental Carbon will eventually learn that doing business in this country and in Oklahoma is not just taking with both hands and slapping anyone who gets in your way."


TAIWANESE DEMO

In Taiwan, meanwhile, unions and other prominent campaigning organisations rallied in front of the parent company's headquarters yesterday. They also protested outside the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). The demonstrators urged Koo Chun-Fu to end the lock-out and respect labour rights. Koo chairs both the SEF and the family-run Koo Group business empire, which controls Continental Carbon. "All of us were assembled here because we feel ashamed of the Koos' treatment of US labour and the environment," said the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU). "We should unite and force the Koos to solve this issue."

The TCTU and the Taiwan Petroleum Workers' Union (TPWU) organised the demonstration.

To get the message across, they brought along an outsize "Anti-Lockout Key" and said Koo should use it to "open up" the situation and end the lock-out.

Key points are nothing new to Koo. As chair of the SEF, he has often been involved in delicate discussions between Taipei and Beijing. Yet SEF representatives who met the demonstrators refused even to touch either the key or the accompanying "Anti-Lockout File."

"We won't give up," the Taiwanese unions insist. They point to Koo Group shareholder meetings this June, which will be "a great opportunity to make an impact on the shareholders, the company's management and the public."

GLOBAL SUPPORT

Both PACE and the TPWU are affiliated to the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which is backing the campaign.

"The first anniversary of Continental Carbon's lock-out at Poca City is a deeply shameful one for the company," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs today. "This year-long lock-out is a violation of workers' internationally recognised basic rights and would be illegal in many countries. On behalf of more than 20 million workers worldwide united within the ICEM, I salute the struggle of our American affiliate, PACE. We pledge full support to PACE and its members. Continental Carbon must end the lock-out immediately and bargain in good faith.

"Trade unions in Taiwan have been conducting an exemplary campaign in support of their American colleagues," Higgs added. "We congratulate the ICEM-affiliated TPWU and the TCTU on this outstanding example of global solidarity in action."


POLLUTION PROBLEMS

Back in the US, Continental Carbon is also at the centre of a dispute between Ponca citizens' groups and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The groups include representatives of PACE and of the Ponca Indian tribe.

At a news conference in Oklahoma City yesterday, the groups accused the DEQ of acting to protect Continental Carbon's profits rather than the environment and people of Oklahoma. The citizens are calling on the DEQ to pursue additional enforcement against Continental Carbon. They also want the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office and the US Environmental Protection Agency to intercede and investigate the DEQ's relationship with the company for possible conflicts of interest.


Among other things, the groups allege that the DEQ privately assured the company, immediately after issuing two separate Violation Notices this February, that no penalties would have to be paid.

One of the notices followed a complaint by Continental Carbon employees, who suspected that the company's drinking water system was unsafe. They also believed that the hazardous chemical dibutylphthalate was being poured down the laboratory drain. The ensuing DEQ investigation found the water supply system to be a "potential health hazard", and the hazardous chemical was found in the laboratory sewer. The second notice charged the company with wastewater system violations. The most serious of these concerned illegal discharges of hydrocarbon-contaminated wastewater.