Foodstuff Workers Industrial Union 460

Santiago, 27, came to New York from Mexico six years ago. To support his wife and three kids back in Mexico, he worked for five years at Flor De Mayo restaurant, on Amsterdam Avenue at 84th Street, until last September.

He made deliveries, did janitorial work, hauled groceries, and worked six days a week, 12 hours a day, with no breaks, for $90 a week. That averages out to $1.25 an hour. Even with tips from deliveries averaging about 30 a day, Santiago earned less than New York's $4.60 an hour minimum wage for tipped employees.

Despite his minuscule wages, Flor De Mayo required him to provide his own bicycle, which cost him $330.

"They treat us like slaves, and I'm fighting for my rights."

In May, after a union organizing dispute at the nearby Saigon Grill Restaurant called attention to the pitiful wages and poor working conditions for restaurant delivery workers citywide, the management at Flor de Mayo raised the salaries of its deliverymen to $184 a week and reduced their work week to 40 hours, its workers said. Even so, last week Santiago, Fernando Lopez, Adolfo Lopez and Venancio Galindo sued the restaurant. They're asking for more than $500,000 total in back wages, unpaid overtime, reimbursable work expenses, and punitive damages for being exploited.

Flor de Mayo's owners, Jose Chu and Phillip Chu, did not return a call for comment.

Legal challenges by workers in the city's low-paid industries to their working conditions are growing. The exploitation of workers in Chinatown has been reported for years. But last week former employees of celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who owns upscale Manhattan restaurants, filed lawsuit in claiming he paid them subminimum wages, cheated them out of overtime and forced them to share tips with their bosses.

The exploitation of low-wage workers is one of the biggest social issues of our time. A study of low-wage jobs in New York City released by The Brennan Center for Social Justice last month found a widespread pattern of abuses in certain industries - ranging from restaurants, groceries and retail stores, to building maintenance and security, laundry and dry cleaning, domestic work, and beauty salons. The most common abuses are paying workers below the minimum wage, forcing them to work long hours without paying overtime, ignoring health and safety regulations, failing to buy workers' compensation insurance, and retaliating against workers who complain. The study found that the exploited workers are often immigrants and people who've been released from prison.

I'm told that New York State has some of the most progressive labor laws in the country. But its department of labor is understaffed. Even when workplace abuses are discovered, critics say, the department often settles for settlements far less than the workers are owed.

But when it comes to wages and workplace treatment, it doesn't matter the workers are here legally or illegally. All workers should be paid and treated according to the law.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has demonstrated concern about workers' issues, and created a bureau for immigration workers in the labor department. Last fall, after a number of highly publicized deaths at construction sites, most of them involving immigrant laborers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg funded a task force to address safety issues.

The way for workers to get relief from oppressive work conditions is to sue or to complain to the right agencies. But plenty of immigrants don't know what the labor laws are, and if they do, they may be afraid to complain for fear of having their illegal status revealed. That's why more community groups like National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, a workers advocacy group, need to educate workers about their rights. Once workers start talking about their problems, they start organizing.

"All New York delivery workers need to open their minds and realize we have rights," Fernando Lopez told me. "We have the right to fight these conditions."

About the Union:

The Industrial Workers of the World, NYC
General Membership Branch meets the first Sunday of each month at 2pm at our office: 44-61 11th Street 3rd Floor Long Island City, NY 11101.

Industrial Union 460/640 meets the first monday of each month at 7pm at our office: 44-61 11th Street 3rd Floor Long Island City, NY 11101.

How to contact us:

Disclaimer - The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective.

By Richard Salit - Providence Journal Staff Writer, August 14, 2007

NORTH PROVIDENCE — A labor union yesterday stepped up its charges of police brutality following a demonstration at a local restaurant Saturday during which a protestor's leg was badly broken in a scuffle with officers.

The Industrial Workers of the World yesterday planned to hold a vigil today at 4 p.m. at Rhode Island Hospital for Alexandra Svoboda, 22, who was undergoing surgery for the injury to her leg. The union released pictures of Svoboda, with her leg severely bent while being subdued and arrested by officers.

For two years workers in New York food industry have been organizing with the IWW for higher wages, better conditions and respect on the job. The IWW IU 460's organizing drive has involved the participation of hundreds of workers and has significantly improved, directly and indirectly, wages and working conditions across the industry. Yet there is still a great deal of organizing left to do: in many sectors, sub-minimum wages and slave-like conditions still exist and the bosses have not been dealt a decisive blow. Today we urge you to pledge $5 per week to support this important campaign that has the capacity to build the IWW into a powerful force in the food industry, not just in New York, but also across the country.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

So far we have talked to our Fellow Workers in over locations in dozens of companies. As many as a thousand workers in the industry have heard about the campaign and over 70 have joined the IWW. In response to the campaign and numerous direct actions at these shops the bosses have given up the following wage gains (the NY minimum wage went up to $7.15 this January): Handyfat Trading from $4.50 to $8.00, EZ-Supply/Sunrise Plus Corp from $5.00 to $6.75, Amersino Marketing $5.00 to $7.15, and Top City Produce from $6.00 to $7.15. All of these shops now comply with overtime laws. And at Top City, a contract is waiting to be signed which stipulates that workers will make $8.50. Over the last two years bosses in the industry, who had grown accustomed to taking advantage of the workers, got a rude shock.

In response, the bosses have tried to bust the Union. 20 workers were fired from EZ-Supply and Handyfat in late December of 2006 and 5 temporarily suspended from Top City for a month at around the same time, for a total of around $10,000-11,500 in lost wages per week. Many of these workers have been able to find work in other shops, but some workers have been blacklisted in the industry and are having trouble keeping jobs.

In the NLRB supervised elections at Handyfat, three workers were bribed to vote against the union and at Amersino, a shift of non-workers were brought in by the boss to rig the vote. Countless other threats and intimidation have ensued including vandalism to workers property such as a car engine that was destroyed.

The workers and supporters have directly responded to the union busting with 10 strikes, dozens of pickets and demonstrations, and several marches, one with 125 and another with 200 participants. The longest picket was maintained for a full week, stopping several trailers worth of deliveries.

Now is your chance to join directly in this fight. The bosses have been stuffing their pockets with profits while the workers take home less than minimum wage and hours exceeding 60 hours per week. The bosses' parade must stop. We have a vision for this campaign to stretch across the industry and continue the gains of this movement to improve conditions everywhere. It will be a serious undertaking, but one that we believe the Union is ready to make.

Here is a run down of some critical details of the legal actions of this
campaign:

--Two workers were reinstated at Amersino (one with back wages) and a
third is waiting the appeal

--NLRB decision on the unfair Handyfat firings charges is expected in
late August

--NLRB hearing on unfair EZ-Supply firings charges is in July

--There are seven class action lawsuits filed against companies under the Fair Labor Standards Act and NY labor law: