Current Campaigns

Workers at Kosher Food Producer Score Legal Victory for Equal Rights: Labor Board Prohibits Employers from Engaging in Discriminatory 'Fishing Expeditions'

Posted Sat, 01/21/2012 - 1:41am by IWW.org Editor

Washington, DC- Immigrant workers organizing for justice at a Brooklyn-based producer and distributor of kosher food products have taken a big step forward in their campaign and achieved a legal victory for workers around the country. Using discriminatory allegations about workers' immigration status, Flaum Appetizing has been resisting compliance with a 2009 trial decision that found the company illegally fired employees who came together seeking dignified working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board holding precludes Flaum from continuing to raise baseless immigration status defenses against at least eleven of the workers, and potentially as many as fifteen. By prohibiting employers from engaging in discriminatory 'fishing expeditions' against immigrants or perceived immigrants, the Board clarified important procedural safeguards in cases governed by the landmark anti-immigrant Supreme Court case, Hoffman Plastic.

"Companies that discriminate and undermine labor rights drive down economic standards for every working person, native-born and immigrant alike," said Daniel Gross, the director of non-profit organization Brandworkers, which, along with the Industrial Workers of the World labor union is campaigning for justice at Flaum as part of the Focus on the Food Chain campaign. "Worker organizing helps create the type of quality jobs that support a dynamic economy and healthy communities. The Labor Board's decision is an important step toward ensuring that Flaum and companies like it will not escape accountability through unfounded and discriminatory inquiries into immigration status."

New York grocery stores and restaurants rely on an industrial corridor of food processing factories and distribution warehouses like Flaum that hold down wages and safety standards by exploiting recent immigrant workers. Wage theft, discrimination, and abuse is common in the sector and efforts for change are almost always met with determined and unlawful retaliation. Overcoming these challenges, the Flaum workers are waging a powerful campaign to bring the company into compliance with fundamental workplace protections. The workers have shared their story and persuaded over 120 of NYC's most prominent supermarket locations to discontinue selling Flaum products, including it's Sonny & Joe's hummus, until the company comports with the rule of law. The global kosher cheese giant Tnuva refused to renew its distribution contract with Flaum after spirited worker campaigning and support from Jewish organizations including Uri L'Tzedek, the Orthodox social  justice organization.

"We're glad Flaum didn't get away with avoiding its responsibilities under the law," said Maria Corona, one of the victorious workers and a Focus on the Food Chain member. "There's power in coming together with your co-workers and we are well on our way to winning the justice we have been seeking."

The NLRB's Office of the General Counsel is prosecuting the case against Flaum. The Flaum workers are represented by Eisner & Mirer, a New York labor & employment law firm.

Focus on the Food Chain promotes sustainable jobs and a thriving local food industry in the City of New York. Through organizing, grassroots advocacy, and legal action, the campaign challenges and overcomes unlawful conditions in food processing and distribution warehouses. The Focus campaign is a collaboration of non-profit organization Brandworkers and the NYC Industrial Workers of the World labor union.

Being the bigger person

Posted Thu, 01/05/2012 - 5:47pm by IWW.org Editor

By FW Liberte Locke - originally posted at libcom.com - December 29, 2011.

Union organizer with the IWW Starbucks Workers Union dispels the sentiment that 'being the better person' must entail living as a doormat.

I’m so sick of being told to be the bigger person. I get all the scrutiny. I should forgive the unforgivable. I should move on with my life, let it go, drop it, stop being confrontational, stop rocking the boat, stop holding grudges, and be the bigger person. When did “being the bigger person” mean just accepting being treated like shit?

I’m told not to create an “us against them” feeling between worker and employer. I did not create that. Employers created it and long before I was even born. It has always and will always be us, working ourselves to near death, against them, not lifting a finger to help but reaping all the spoils.

I fight this system of oppression because of all the love I have in me. It is because I’m capable of great love that I am able to meet a coworker and know that I will fight for them regardless of who they are, the size of their families, where they are from, how they do their job, what languages they speak, and traditions they keep. Even if they can't fight for me, I will fight for them. It is because I think we’re all truly worth something that I fight. Not everyone thinks like me. In fact, I think most people in American society are taught to never trust anyone. Everyone wants something from you, every boyfriend will cheat, every friend betray you, every parent leave you, every coworker steal credit for your work, every person asking directions will eventually ask for change, too. I don’t see it that way. Every person that I meet I make a concerted effort to trust their words, listen to their stories, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Despite popular belief, I do this with bosses, too, to some extent.

My body, my rules: a case for rape and domestic violence survivors becoming workplace organizers

Posted Tue, 12/13/2011 - 3:18pm by IWW.org Editor

Liberté Locke, a Starbucks Workers Union organizer, writes about how violence at work and in our personal lives are similar, how domestic abusers and bosses use the same techniques of control and that we need to fight both.

By Liberté Locke

I was raped by a boyfriend on August 18th, 2006. The very next day I held back tears while I lied to a stranger over the phone about why I was unavailable to go in that day for a second interview for a job that I desperately needed. When I hung up the phone I saw a new text message. It was from him. “It’s not over. It will never be over between us…”

The next day I went in for the second interview. It was inside of the Sears Tower Starbucks in Chicago. I took the train to the interview constantly looking around me and shaking. I needed work. I had just been fired from Target two weeks prior and had no prospects. I knew I would have to go through a metal detector in order to enter the building so despite every instinct in my body I did not bring a knife with me.

“What would you do if you caught a coworker stealing?”

My mind is racing. I’m thinking that I risked my safety by leaving my house for a stupid job that pays $7.75/hr. Aren’t I worth more than that? Aren’t we all worth so much more?

“I’d tell management right away, of course. I’ve never understood why someone would steal from work…”

I tell them what they want me to.

I started working at Starbucks on August 22, 2006. That was a little over five years ago. Every year we have annual reviews where I generally get to argue with someone younger than me who makes significantly more than do about why my hard work, aching back, cracking hands, sore wrists, the bags under my eyes, the burns, the bruises on my arms, the cuts on my knees, the constant degrading treatment by the customers, the “baby, honey, sugar, bitch”, the “hey, you, slut…I said NO whip cream!”s, the staring, the following after work…I get to argue why all that means I’m worth a 33cent raise rather than 22cents, Degrading for any worker. Degrading especially for a woman worker. Only for me, I get to do this every year just four days after the anniversary of when someone I was in love with raped me. My annual review is truly the only reason I’m reminded of the anniversary of the assault.

Jimmy John’s Workers Make Headway

Posted Tue, 12/13/2011 - 1:56pm by IWW.org Editor

By David Feldmann

For several years, the IWW has had an active organizing drive in Jimmy John’s sandwich shops, most notably in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. (the Twin Cities). Earlier this year, six Jimmy John’s workers were fired, ostensibly for violating the company’s attendance policy regarding sick days. The workers were all IWW members who had been involved in attempts to publicize the food safety concerns of Jimmy John’s sandwich makers in the Twin Cities. Naturally, the union members contend that they were targeted because of their involvement with the IWW and not because of their attempts to call in sick without finding someone to cover their shift (the contentious policy in question).

On Nov. 4, Erik Forman, longtime IWW member and Jimmy John’s worker, announced that “the NLRB [National Labor Relation Board] is going to file a complaint against Jimmy John’s on every single charge we filed against them.” The Jimmy John’s campaign went public in 2010 after a long period of clandestine organizing activity. In October of that year, the first fast food workers’ union in the United States lost a union election (85 in favor, 87 against) after franchise owner Mike Mulligan spent more than $84,000 on union busting, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. IWW members argued that Mulligan, who owns ten Jimmy John’s stores in the Twin Cities, broke labor laws in trying to stifle the union’s presence and influence. This position was reinforced by the NLRB, who threw out the election results in January 2011 after declaring Mulligan had, among other things, lied to employees about the union and unlawfully retaliated against IWW members. To date, the IWW hasn’t called for another election, but has instead focused on exposing alleged health code violations at Jimmy John’s locations and getting the fired workers reinstated at the fast food chain. After the results of the NLRB investigation were announced, the Jimmy John’s union proclaimed that all “six fired organizers will go back to work, with back pay, hopefully within the next few months.”

For a labor union that has historically eschewed legal recognition, the IWW has been surprisingly successful at convincing the NLRB that they are in the right, not just in regards to Jimmy John’s but also in the more established campaign to organize baristas at Starbucks (the IWW has won even more legal victories in that struggle). Time will tell whether the IWW can withstand the onslaught of anti-union tactics employed by Mulligan and the rest of Jimmy John’s management in the Twin Cities and continue to expand the union. Now that the NLRB decision has strengthened their resolve, this prospect seems very likely indeed.

Victory! ‘Unfair Labor Practice’ Confirmed at Forest Hill Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream

Posted Wed, 11/23/2011 - 4:00pm by x370724

 

The National Labor Relations Board reached a decision (case 05-CA-062891) this week bringing justice to a fellow worker wrongfully fired from the Forest Hill  Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream in Richmond, Virginia.
On August 18, 2011  (see 'Unfair Labor Practice'  at the Forest Hill Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream?) an 'Unfair Labor Practice' was filed against the local establishment for a violation of an employee's right to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid protection, as found in Sec. 7. [§ 157.] of the National Labor Relations Act.
 
The boards decision will require Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream to pay the fellow worker a settlement for lost wages, which includes an agreement that they will not return to their former position with the employer.  Furthermore, Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream must visibly post, for all current workers, and email all former workers, an apology and notice of an employee's right to unionize.