Friday, May 17, 2013

Immigrant Workers Are Organizing in New York -- With or Without Immigration Reform

Actions like this aren't unusual in New York City these days. Everywhere you look you see workers organizing: at supermarkets in Brooklyn, at restaurants and cafés in Manhattan, at carwashes in the Bronx. And over and over again this organizing is in the low-wage service industries that largely employ undocumented immigrants.

By David L. Wilson, MRZine
May 17, 2013

Some 50 to 60 union meat cutters and their supporters turned out on the afternoon of April 6 for a noisy protest against what they said was a lockout by Trade Fair, a chain of nine small supermarkets based in Queens, New York.

Standing in a picket line on a busy sidewalk outside a Trade Fair store in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, many wearing their white aprons, the workers explained that after a year without a contract, they held a brief strike the morning of March 13 over workplace abuses. When they tried to return to work, they said, Trade Fair CEO Farid ("Frank") Jaber responded by laying off all 100 or so meat cutters and hiring non-union replacements. [...]

Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wilson170513.html

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