The Pensacola GMB is currently standing in solidarity with local ATU workers on strike. The company they work for provides bus services to the elderly and disabled. The company was recently bought out, and the new owners are trying to cancel the union contract and get rid of all benefits they have gained by unionizing. These workers have fought long and hard to achieve a union and have won gains  such  a  health care, vacation time, and pay raises. The workers are now on strike trying to preserve these gains. While not wob workers these workers have the same radical spirit and are ready to fight to win.

To help contact the Pensacola GMB at iwwpensacola@yahoo.com

In Solidarity,

FW Briggs

The ATU 1395 are drivers working for little above minimum wage. Maybe you've seen them. They drive the "Community Transportation" vehicles that take the elderly and disabled where they need to go around town. Since unionizing in 1998, the Community Transportation drivers have made many gains, going from $6 hour top pay w/ no benefits to $8 hourly wage with some paid vacation and holiday time and health insurance. Now their boss, Pensacola Bay, which is owned by Marjorie Wilcox of Mobile, is trying to take away their health insurance and as rejected further negotiation on the possibility of future pay increases. It was with great difficulty that the senior members of ATU 1395 have voted to go on strike and take their grievences to the streets. The PNJ's Monday article about the strike said that ATU 1395 President Michael Lowery has stated the dispute is about wages, increased health insurance costs, and a harsher point system on their driving record. The formal complaints include: Failure to bargain in good faith, coercion and intimidation of employees in the union and unilateral policy changes without negotiations.

How can we support them?

By Scott Satterwhite - Industrial Worker, June 2005

For the first time in a long time, local activists in Pensacola held major demonstrations on May Day, the international labor holiday. The story told most often is what happened at the rally, how many people were arrested, and who got beat up by the cops. While that is important, the story least told is how the event came to happen.Pensacola is a small town in the Florida Panhandle with a generally conservative political slant. More like Alabama than Miami, as the local saying goes. However, there has almost always been resistance, from the days of the first invaders, to the abolition movement, anti-war movements, civil rights, gay rights, the fight for reproductive freedom, etc. Pensacola was even the site of one of the largest industrial strikes in Florida history.

This is true all over, I'm sure; it's just that people rarely hear about this because “we” don't own the newspapers that write most small town history. Or American history, for that matter.But there had not been a May Day demonstration in Pensacola for some time.

I would be remiss if I didn't remind readers that nearly a year ago, Pensacola was hit by one of the worst hurricanes in recent history. Almost a year after Hurricane Ivan, the area is still in recovery. Visitors still remark about how devastating the destruction looks nine months later.