NYC GMB

This is the news page for our New York City General Membership Branch. To get an overview about our contact info, news and events, please visit our home page.

City Bakery Blocks General Manager's Extension - Take Action Tell The City Bakery to Honor the Food Chain!

Submitted by intexile on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 3:31am.
Please keep calling City Bakery; apparently it has cut off the general manager's extension! You can call at (212) 366-1414 and then just press 0 and ask for a manager. Please send the revised call to action below to your lists, otherwise folks won't be able to get through:

The City Bakery chain enjoys an image of being a "green" and "socially conscious" business. Yet, the City Bakery NY sells seafood from labor rights violator, Wild Edibles, Inc.

Given City Bakery's progressive image, current and former Wild Edibles workers were surprised when owner Maury Rubin refused to even enter into a dialogue regarding the hardships they face.

Make the Road, IWW Unite in Call for Immigrant and Workers’ Rights

Submitted by intexile on Mon, 05/05/2008 - 3:29pm.

By By Alex Kane - The Indypendent, May 2, 2008

Brooklyn, New York—Around 150 people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge with Make the Road New York and the Industrial Workers of the World NYC Branch for a May Day immigrant rights demonstration. Flanked by red and black Wobbly flags and signs that read “Opportunity for Immigrant Workers,” the demonstrators chanted slogans like “Si se puede,” and “El pueblo, unido, jamas tera vencido.”

There was a boisterous rally held before the march at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn, with music, dancing and chanting. One song’s lyrics, roughly translated, said “we will overcome misery” and “we’ll have to break the chains.”


Truckers To Strike In NYC On May Day and Rally Off New Jersey Turnpike In Mass Action

Submitted by intexile on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 4:38am.

From: Teresa Gutierrez
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:37 AM
Subject: Truck Drivers & May Day

We are excited to report that a truck will be leading the May Day March from Union Square to Foley Square tomorrow.

This is great news to show our solidarity among all workers of all nationalities, documented, undocumented or born in the U.S.


For Immediate Release:
Transportation Workers Coalition for Change

Contact: Billy Randel, 646-645-6284

New Jersey Port Truckers to Strike Over Fuel and Energy Costs

Workers Will Rally Off the New Jersey Turnpike in Large Work Stoppage.

WHAT: Port truckers will stop work for two days to protest rising fuel and energy costs.


Workers to Ask Judge to Hold Wild Edibles in Contempt of Court Over Retaliatory Firings

Submitted by intexile on Sat, 04/26/2008 - 1:53pm.

For Immediate Release: Brandworkers International

Contact: press (at) brandworkers.org

Press Conference and Rally: Workers Will Ask Judge to Hold Wild Edibles in Contempt of Court Over Retaliatory Firings

Workplace Justice Campaign Has Persuaded Over Twenty of NYC's Most Well-Known Fine Dining Restaurants to Steer Clear of Wild Edibles

COMPELLING VISUALS: Spirited Chanting Workers - Vibrant Signs and Banners

What:


Giorgione Becomes Latest Famed Restaurant to Drop Wild Edibles

Submitted by intexile on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 3:44pm.
For Immediate Release: Brandworkers International

Contact: press (at) brandworkers.org - April 7, 2008
Giorgione Drops Wild Edibles Amid Escalating Labor Dispute

Immigrant Workers Seeking to Improve Large Seafood Company Score Another Victory

New York, NY- Employees at Wild Edibles have chalked up a gain in their effort to win unlawfully withheld overtime pay and a voice at work with the decision of highly-regarded Italian restaurants, Giorgione and Giorgione 508, to refrain from purchasing Wild Edibles seafood until workers' grievances are fairly resolved. Giorgione joins leading New York restaurants including Pastis, Union Square Cafe, La Goulue, Mermaid Inn, and Sushi Samba that have previously pulled out of Wild Edibles over concern for the treatment of employees there.

Seafood Co. Losing Millions as Sushi Samba Says No More Wild Edibles

Submitted by intexile on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 4:54pm.

Wild Edibles Continues to Lose Millions of Dollars Over Mistreatment of Workers

New York, NY- Large seafood wholesaler and retailer, Wild Edibles, is seeing its customer base rapidly erode with Sushi Samba, one of the nation's hottest sushi restaurants, cutting off purchases from the company until an employment dispute with workers is fairly resolved. Sushi Samba Park and Sushi Samba 7 join leading New York restaurants like Pastis, Union Square Cafe, La Goulue, and Mermaid Inn that have previously pulled out of Wild Edibles over concern for the treatment of employees there.

"We are very pleased that Sushi Samba has chosen to support the legal rights of workers at Wild Edibles," said Daniel Gross, the founding director of Brandworkers International, a non-profit workers' rights organization providing legal and advocacy assistance to the employees. "Wild Edibles' remaining customers would do well to consider playing a similarly positive role."


Immigrant NY Foodstuffs Workers Organize Industry-Wide IWW Campaign

Submitted by intexile on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 5:14pm.

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).


Handyfat Workers Win $360,000 in Back Pay

Submitted by Steph on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 12:30pm.

IWW to picket Handyfat Trading in celebration of jury award for 6 fired workers of $360,000 in back pay!

Workers from Handyfat Trading founded IWW Industrial Union 460 in December 2005. They were instrumental and active in organizing all the other food service shops that have joined IU 460 since then (ten shops). In addition, these workers along with the workers from EZ Supply/Sunrise Plus achieved the first collective bargaining agreements in this segment of the food industry.

In December 2006 and January 2007, all union members from both Handyfat and EZ Supply were fired. After winning orders of reinstatement and back wages at the NLRB, the workers now begin to win the court battles for their stolen backwages.

The IWW will be holding a picket and press conference this Saturday at Handyfat.

Saturday - March 15th, 2008 at 10am