Before the sun rose over Brooklyn on a windy and brisk January morning, more than 50 foodstuffs workers and their supporters rang in the New Year with pickets to demand their basic rights as workers. The actions, held on the morning of Jan. 2 in front of local foodstuffs distributors, Amersino Marketing Group and EZ-Supply, were organized by the Food and Allied Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), I.U. 460.
The pickets began at 5 AM, when workers braved the cold in front of Amersino to demand unpaid wages and overtime from their boss and to highlight a civil suit that they will file with the help of the IWW in federal court. According to the IWW, this was a “friendly reminder” to their bosses that the New York State minimum wage will be increasing to $7.15 an hour, a figure which organizers say has been “conveniently overlooked in the past.”
In June 2005, Amersino employees filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor over wage and hour violations: they were often working in excess of 65 hours per week and receiving $300 to $350 for their labor, sometimes even less. In the months following the complaint, the DOL took no action, and frustrated workers who had to deal with continuous abuse from their boss, owner Yu Q "Henry" Wang. With the help of the Brooklyn-based community center Make the Road by Walking / Se Hace el Camino al Andar, these workers were able to retain a private lawyer to file new charges in federal court. more info here
According to the IWW, Wang robbed workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages, responded by threatening them, and deceitfully rigged an NLRB union election, and fired two union leaders
Five wildcat strikes throughout March and April 2006 were held in response to these managerial actions—on March 25th, when unionized workers marched on their plant, Wang, realizing that his employees were threatening to strike, reinstated two fired workers and agreed to start paying the minimum wage. However, from April 20 until May 2, workers were locked out of their plant, and five workers were illegally terminated for federally protected union activity.
EZ-Supply workers first joined with the IWW in February 2006, and throughout the following months, the union put pressure on the company to meet at the negotiating table.
EZ-Supply owner Lester Wen refused to bargain in good faith after workers won an NLRB union election, and in response, the union strategically appealed to EZ-Supply’s customers, such as restaurants in Park Slope, the Upper West Side and the Village, to convince them to purchase their supplies through other companies.
After months of inactivity, in late November 2006, Wen met workers at the negotiating table and tentatively agreed to recognize the union, to increase the wage from $1.70 per hour to $2.45, to create a grievance procedure, to give workers paid vacation and sick days, to refrain from discriminating against workers based on their immigration status, and to purge workers’ records of union activities. (
http://www.iww.org/en/node/3052)
Following this negotiation, on December 26 Wen went back on his agreement by making threats to workers regarding their immigration status. Such threats increased as workers upped the anti, and on the morning of December 28, the IWW served EZ-Supply with a federal complaint regarding back wages and overtime. That evening, Wen fired all of EZ-Supply’s wobbly workers. In response, workers walked off the job in a wildcat strike and only returned after the union assured them that legal action would be taken. (
http://www.iww.org/en/node/3120)
In the week leading up to the Jan. 2 picket, IWW members and supporters continued to leaflet EZ-Supply’s customer restaurants, such as the Park Slope Food Co-op, to inform them about such anti-worker practices and encourage them to purchase from other places, and to put further pressure on EZ-Supply to respect the rights of its workers.
Although the union struggles at both Amersino and EZ-Supply have been both long and hard-fought, workers at these companies are not alone. The IWW has an organized presence at three other foodstuffs distributors in the area - Giant Big Apple Beer Ltd., Handy Fat and Top City. Organizers say that although all of these workers haven’t won yet, they are standing together in solidarity and refuse to give in.
In the past year, the union’s first non-majority contract in the industry was signed at the distributor Handy Fat, outlining basic wage and overtime stipulations as well as a grievance procedure. Furthermore, on December 26, 2006, the IWW served Giant Big Apple Ltd. with a class-action lawsuit.
This occurred about one year after workers filed a wage and hour complaint with the DOL. No further action was taken by the DOL, and workers allege that their boss continued to violate state and federal wage laws—they consulted with NYC labor attorney Stuart Lichten, and filed a class action against Giant Big Apple on behalf of all present and former employees of the company. (
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/81320.html)
Following the recent actions, the IWW has received scattered reports from warehouse workers in northern Brooklyn and Queens that some of the bosses are now starting to pay minimum wage and overtime.
Amersino worker Diego Lezama said that once the union had a significant presence in their shop, the support and solidarity branched out from there. Recently, he told IWW organizer Billy Randal that after the boss told him “ ‘You brought this f--king union in here and I’m gonna get you for it,’” workers responded by spontaneously walking out en masse which forced Wen to apologize for his comments— the first time he had ever apologized for anything. Diego felt empowered by the solidarity and support from his fellow workers, and told Randal “We aren’t going to take this anymore. They have to treat us like we’re human beings, not slaves.”
Members of the Industrial Workers of the World, organizers at New York warehouses were sacked over the festive period, in retaliation for their successful unionising drive...
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Brooklyn, New York On January 2nd 2007 at 5:00AM, workers from the Food and Allied Workers Union (Industrial Workers of the World, I.U. 460) and their supporters will ring in the New Year with a picket targeting the Amersino Marketing Group at 161 Gardner Ave, Brooklyn, NY.
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