Thread: Immigrant NY Foodstuffs Workers Organize Industry-Wide IWW

Welcome to Infoshop News
Tuesday, March 18 2008 @ 08:20 PM PDT

Immigrant NY Foodstuffs Workers Organize Industry-Wide IWW Campaign
Tuesday, March 18 2008 @ 06:05 AM PDT
Contributed by: WorkerFreedom
Views: 106

Although the Industrial Workers of the World pioneered industrial unionism 100 years ago, it hasn’t seen a significant organizing drive in the United States for decades—until a recent drive among short-haul truckers on the West Coast and an ongoing campaign by the IWW Food and Allied Workers Union, New York Local I.U. 460/640, to organize food industry workers (the vast majority of them undocumented immigrants) in New York City.



Immigrant NY Foodstuffs Workers Organize Industry-Wide IWW Campaign
By Maria Rodriguez Gil

March 16, 2008

From the Anarcho Syndicalist Review:

Although the Industrial Workers of the World pioneered industrial unionism 100 years ago, it hasn’t seen a significant organizing drive in the United States for decades—until a recent drive among short-haul truckers on the West Coast and an ongoing campaign by the IWW Food and Allied Workers Union, New York Local I.U. 460/640, to organize food industry workers (the vast majority of them undocumented immigrants) in New York City.

The two-year-old organizing drive has reached about 500 workers in dozens of food industry companies and has significantly improved, directly and indirectly, wages and working conditions across the industry in the New York City area.

Proving wrong those who claim that you can’t build a union with undocumented workers, the IWW has succeeded where traditional unions failed, becoming the only union in the country with 90% undocumented members (more than 70 have joined Local I.U. 460/640).

Although there were serious setbacks and the challenges continue, the following shops were successfully organized in Brooklyn and Queens: HandyFat Trading Corp., Sunrise Plus Corp. (formerly EZ-Supply Co.), Top City Produce, Bread and Company, Amersino, HWH/Dragonland Trading, Wild Edibles, and Giant Big Apple.

The campaign began in August 2005, when IWW New York Local I.U. 460/640 began to organize HandyFat Trading Corp., a 14-worker shop (5 drivers, 9 warehouse workers) in Brooklyn after two undocumented Mexican employees asked for outside help. HandyFat was paying its workers $280 per week for 60-65 hours a week, with no overtime and no benefits of any kind.

What IWW organizers found at HandyFat and the other shops was extensive and longstanding abuse of undocumented workers, primarily from Mexico, who had no recourse due to their legal status and inability to speak English. All of the companies had sweatshop conditions: workers were paid sub-minimum wages with no overtime, no medical insurance or sick days, no safety measures, no vacation time, and verbal abuse from the owners that included constant shouting and racial slurs towards Mexican workers. Top City Produce paid no overtime and sub-minimum wages for 72-hour weeks. But perhaps the worst offender was restaurant supplier HWH/Dragonland Trading, which forced its workers to put in 80-115 hours a week for $4.95/hour, with no overtime pay.

The success of this campaign was based on its tactics and strategies. In addition to traditional IWW organizing techniques, direct actions, and rank-and-file principles, supply-line organizing proved effective, as did a variety of legal tactics.

Supply-line organizing proved successful at a number of shops during the campaign. At the same time the union was organizing a targeted shop, as in the case of HandyFat, it began to gather information on the company’s suppliers and customers with the end of organizing the workers there as well. Then those workers could unite with union workers at the original shop to force their employers to pay legal wages and generally improve their working conditions.

One success that was highly visible in the New York press was the case of Wild Edibles, a high-end retail and wholesale seafood supplier. The IWW organized the workers of one of Wild Edibles’ customers, the upscale restaurant Pastis. As a result, Pastis (which had fired four IWW workers when they filed a lawsuit for back wages) and three other trendy Manhattan restaurants with the same owner stopped using Wild Edibles as their seafood supplier until the conflict with the union was resolved.

Taking legal action was another successful strategy used during the campaign. The use of the legal system in the form of NLRB elections, lawsuits for back wages and the reinstatement of workers fired for organizing, and written agreements was a hotly debated topic within the union. In the past, the IWW had used legal recourse only when it would have an immediate effect, for example, to help workers who had been beaten up by bosses or the police or to spring workers from jail for actions they had taken a part in. But, until this campaign, the union had never before used the legal system as a strategy and tactic.

One of the concerns was that using the legal system could focus the campaign on winning shop elections and relying on government agencies like the NLRB and the courts instead of building shops and training workers for self-management. Another criticism was that filing lawsuits was a waste of time and energy because they often take years to reach a resolution and decisions cannot be relied on. As one member of the campaign, Jim Crutchfield, said, “The state and the law have never been friends of the workers.â€

ICE should shut down these illegal alien workplaces. Legiitimate employers and employees are being hurt by thesse low wage shops using illegal labor.

So, who's making all the money off the lawsuits? The poor little fired workers? Not! It's the attorneys and union bosses. History repeats itself.

Dixie