Unions organize laundry workers
Special to Workers World
UNITE and the Teamsters union announced on
June 25 in Chicago that they are joining in an international
effort to organize workers at Cintas.
Cintas is the biggest company in the uniform and laundry
industry, with some 28,000 employees working in 300 plants and
facilities in the U.S. and Canada.
This is the biggest organizing drive taken on by UNITE since
its 1999 victory in the South Carolina textile industry. Since
then, anti-worker trade agreements such as NAFTA have wiped out
union jobs in the textile and garment industry.
The Cintas organizing campaign is the most important part of
UNITE's initiative to build its strength in numbers. A union
victory for the low-paid, Black, Latina and immigrant workers
at Cintas would give UNITE a more powerful voice at the
bargaining table for all its members. It would open the gates
for organizing the entire industry.
Oppressive and dangerous working conditions along with
anti-union tactics have currently brought Cintas under
investigation in the U.S. and Canada for over 100 violations of
federal labor law. In March, Cintas drivers filed a national
class action lawsuit charging the company with refusing to pay
drivers up to $100 million in overtime pay.
UNITE says the company fired union supporters, threatened
plant closures, and carried out surveillance and intimidation
of workers who support unionization.
Laundry production workers and the drivers are struggling to
organize a union that can change the current working
conditions. They want to earn enough money to support their
families and have time left after work to spend with their
children. They need medical care and a retirement plan.
Cintas delivery drivers will organize with the Teamsters and
the production workers in Cintas laundries will organize with
UNITE. Cintas workers in the U.S. and Canada began the
organizing campaign with UNITE in February 2003.
UNITE represents over 250,000 members in the U.S. and
Canada, including over 40,000 members in the laundry industry.
The Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million members
throughout North America. UNITE and the Teamsters currently
represent more than one-third of the workers in the uniform and
laundry industry.
Reprinted from the July 10, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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