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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 13, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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New York restaurant workers fight to save their jobs

By Judi Cheng in New York

"No justice, no peace! No contract, no Riese!"

That was the message restaurant workers and their supporters sent when they came out into the cold Jan. 29 to demonstrate in front of Martini's Restaurant. Martini's is one of the many restaurants owned by the Riese Corporation in New York.

Three hundred fifty members of Hotel Employees Local 100 who work at 18 Riese restaurants are fighting to save their jobs and benefits. Contracts covering cooks, waiters, dishwashers, bartenders, bussers and other workers were due to expire Jan. 31, and the company was set to cancel health coverage.

Workers are also trying to stop Riese from closing union restaurants, laying off the workers, then reopening the restaurants under new names. "In the past, this company closed union shops and the workers ended on the streets," union organizer Brooks Bitterman told Workers World.

"In the last four years, this company has closed 25 unionized shops, and 450 workers have lost their jobs," said Local 100 President Henry Tamarin. Some of the affected workers had been at Riese for 15 or 20 years.

The Jan. 29 protest drew over 400 workers and supporters from Local 100's sister local, Local 6, members of the UNITE union, Utility Workers, Farm Workers, Food and Commercial Workers, Theatrical and Stage Employees, and representatives of Workfairness, Jobs With Justice and other groups.

Among rally speakers were Local 100 organizer Gavrielle Gemma, Sister Christine Mulready of the Intercommunity Center for Peace and Justice, and New York City Central Labor Council President Brian McLaughlin.

The demonstrators turned the gathering into a march past the many Riese restaurants in the Times Square area. It ended with a picket line in front of Charley O's in Shubert Alley. That's one of the restaurants where the workers fear losing their jobs because of the company's plans to replace it with a more upscale one.

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