NEW YORK
Immigrant workers win their union
By Scott
Scheffer
New York
Sometimes the struggle of a handful of workers against the
bosses is as significant as a great strike involving hundreds
or even thousands.
In New York, grocery-store workers on two fronts are engaged
in battle. What is so important is that both groups are workers
whose circumstances made the very idea of organizing seem
impossible in the past.
Their bosses had evaded even the most rudimentary of laws
meant to protect workers. Yet, against all odds these workers
are making their voices heard. And they are thereby paving the
way for futures struggles of all workers whose prospects for
union recognition and fair treatment had been written off.
The first group is workers at New York's
greengroceries--small independent grocery stores that sell
fresh produce and other groceries. Fourteen thousand Mexican
immigrants work in these produce stores.
Local 169 of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and
Textile Employees joined with the Lower East Side Community
Labor Coalition to organize support for a five-month long
strike of greengrocery workers.
By early January, workers at two stores had won recognition
through this strike. And by Jan. 18, a third store, called
Hee2, has agreed to recognize the union.
While the details of the third settlement are not yet
available, the first two victories provide at least minimum
wage, overtime pay, health insurance and a one-week paid
vacation per year.
The second group of workers who are currently defying the
bosses' conventional wisdom are immigrants from West Africa who
deliver groceries for the big chain supermarkets and drug
stores, including Food Emporium, Gristede's, A&P and Duane
Reade. There are about 500 of these workers in Manhattan, and
more in the city's other boroughs.
In November about 100 of these workers staged a walkout.
They were protesting wages of between 87 cents and $1.84 per
hour.
The chain stores hire them from sub-contractors in order to
evade minimum-wage laws. As a result, the workers are
considered "independent contractors" instead of regular
employees. They work 12-hour days, six to seven days a week,
with no benefits.
Even though they work on a per-delivery basis, these
deliverers often have to also help bag groceries or do other
work directly for the chain store that claims not to employ
them.
Some of the workers who took part in the November strike
were fired. But that didn't stop the struggle.
UNITE is supporting these workers as well as the
greengrocery workers. By mid-January, as a result of the
continuing struggle, two federal class-action lawsuits were
filed against the chain stores to make them change the
classification of the delivery workers and recognize them as
employees instead of independent contractors. A victory would
entitle the workers to minimum wage and other basic protections
under labor laws.
When interviewed by Workers World in December, one of the
strike organizers, Mamadou Camara, talked about their struggle
and the union's assistance.
"They [UNITE] are trying to help us start a union and an
African Workers Association," he explained. "Our strike was not
about winning. It was about struggling and seeing results over
time."
These efforts are typical of the new momentum in the labor
movement that is reaching out to immigrants and other sectors
of the working class that have been so isolated until now. It's
a welcome development that's been a long time coming.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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