Migrant
Farmworkers Win Union Representation in Right To Work
State
Farm Labor Organizing
Committee (FLOC) workers and their allies emerged
victorious from a 5-year national boycott of Mount Olive
Pickle Company, winning union representation and higher
wages for more than 8000 cucumber pickers brought to North
Carolina farms through the federal H-2A visa program.
The agreement between FLOC, the North Carolina Growers
Association and Mount Olive Pickle Company represents
another success in holding major food packaging corporations
responsible for the working conditions of the farm laborers
who supply their vegetables.
Farm workers are among the most vulnerable
laborers inthe United States. Federal legislation excludes
them from many rights most other workers enjoy—a
minimum wage, overtime pay and the ability to engage in
collective bargaining.
Responding to growers' attempts to lower
labor costs by increasing acreage in the South, Farm Labor
Organizing Committee (FLOC) began an organizing campaign
among North Carolina cucumber pickers in 1997. Mount Olive
Pickle Company, the cucumber growers' biggest client and
the second largest pickle company in the U.S., has almost
total control over the growing process, from supplying
the seeds to determining the crop price. However, the
company refused to be accountable for the abymsal working
conditions pickers faced: overcrowded and substandard
housing, a lack of portable toilets or hand-washing facilities
in the workplace, and wages far below the poverty line.
In 1999, FLOC decided to conduct a national boycott to
force Mount Olive to negotiate a multi-party agreement
between the union, the growers and the processor.
DataCenter provided campaign research support
to FLOC in 1999 and again this year as the organizing
campaign gathered more workers' signatures daily, and
the boycott increased its support from a growing number
of interfaith communities, worker alliances and community-based
organizations. Even grocers carrying Mount Olive pickles
called upon the company to negotiate. Under pressure of
a broadening boycott movement, Mount Olive indicated a
willingness to hold discussions with workers' representatives.
Mount Olive Pickle Co. promised to raise
the price it pays growers by 10 percent over three years,
while growers said they will increase workers wages by
the same amount. The growers association also agreed to
study how to improve housing and health care for the farm
workers.
For further information see Farm
Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO
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Toward
A Domestic Workers Bill of Rights
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Graphic
design by John Won
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Since the abolition of institutionalized
slavery, domestic workers have been invisible, exploited
and left out of labor protections and the labor movement.
Their labor has rarely been recognized by lawmakers or
society at large as "real work." However, in
global cities like New York, the domestic work industry
is expanding, providing childcare and home care while
their employers go to work. Today, the New York City economy
is supported by one of the largest domestic worker labor
forces in the country. Still, working conditions have
improved little since the 1860s. Once a field for predominantly
African American women, the domestic work industry is
now dominated by immigrant women fleeing the widespread
destruction and devastation left by the globalization
process in the Third World. Domestic workers, especially
live-in workers, work long hours, have little job security,
and no control over living or working conditions. Domestic
workers are isolated in their workplace, forced to negotiate
conditions one-on-one with employers. There are no clear
standards for domestic employment and the few protections
that exist are rarely enforced.
Domestic Workers
United is an alliance
of domestic workers and domestic worker organizations
working to build power among domestic workers, raise the
level of respect for domestic work and establish fair
labor standards in the domestic work industry of New York
City. DWU has initiated a campaign to amend New York State
Labor Law to ensure domestic workers receive living wages
and fair benefits, are protected from trafficking, recognized
as employees and entitled to protections under state labor
law and human rights law.
Because the domestic work industry is fragmented,
informal and underground, it is impossible to rely on
Census or labor data to analyse industry-wide trends.
DWU and DataCenter are collaborating on a community documentation
project to gather data on practices and issues within
the industry. Using a participatory, community-based research
model, the project engages domestic workers in all aspects
of the research and analysis. The documentation project
will be used in organizing, policy and media work to improve
conditions for domestic workers.
For further information contact Domestic
Workers United.
Affordable
Housing in a University Town
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Figueroa
Corridor tenants march for L.A.'s First Displacement
Free Zone, 2003. Photo: Robin Doyno.
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The Figueroa Corridor
is a 40-block strip between USC and the Staples Center.
USC is building a basketball arena here and the Coalition
has tied the millions of development dollars being spent
to the housing needs of the neighborhood. The University's
lack of student housing, combined with a Los Angeles housing
crisis, puts students and working-class families in fierce
competition, often leading to evictions of families by unscrupulous
landlords seeking higher rents from students.
The Coalition has brought
these issues to the forefront in numerous public hearings
and in the press. As a result, a Student Community Housing
Coalition has been established on campus and articles about
housing have become a regular feature in USC's Daily
Trojan newspaper. USC is in negotiations with three
private developers to build several thousand units of student
housing, and it initiated legal action against a property
management company that was using the University's name
and logo to promote activities that displace neighborhood
families. The Coalition is engaging with USC administrators
in a collaborative process to incorporate community services,
and potentially family housing, into a USC-owned multi-acre
commercial site adjacent to campus.
Taxi
Workers Alliance Wins Victory for Livable Wages
According to a 2003 survey
(1), New York City taxi drivers paid an
average of $137 per day in operating expenses (to lease
their cab and medallion, and buy gas and insurance), while
earning $160 per day on average. Drivers' take home pay
averaged $22 per day.
Last April, the NYTWA
petitioned the city to lower lease caps and raise taxi fares,
with the purpose of securing a living wage for drivers that
takes into account NYC's cost of living and the high risks
and long work hours of the job. Lease caps are the maximum
amount that taxi companies can charge drivers to rent the
medallion and taxicab. The Alliance also demanded compensation
for losses following the September 11, 2001 disaster and
record-high gas prices.
After a year-long campaign,
NYTWA won a victory in March when the Taxi and Limousine
Commission increased taxi fares by 26%, the first increase
since 1996. For the first time in the taxi industry, the
bulk of the fare raise revenue will go toward drivers' wages,
increasing their incomes by 20-40%. In 1996, drivers received
only 14% of the fare increase. In 2004, due to NYTWA's organizing,
60-75% of the fare increase will go toward driver incomes.
NYTWA also defeated the taxi owners' proposal to raise the
caps on leases by 23%. The Commission agreed to only an
8% increase, limiting the increase to about $100 per week.
Having
a Voice in Redevelopment
Over the past few years, we have worked
with Strategic
Actions for a Just Economy on supporting long-term campaigns
addressing community impact of redevelopment agency decisions
- one to secure affordable housing and living wage jobs in
the face of the University of Southern California's (USC)
persistent expansion into the neighborhood community, and
another to reform Los Angeles redevelopment policy to work
for - rather than against - the interests of low-income residents.
As part of this ongoing struggle, we are now working with
SAJE's Figueroa
Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice on a new campaign.
The Figueroa Corridor is a 40-block strip between USC and
the Staples Center. USC has decided to build a sports arena
in this area and the Coalition wants to ensure that the millions
of development dollars that will be spent have tangible benefits
for the low-income people who live in the surrounding neighborhoods.
To help the Coalition negotiate a stakeholder's voice in future
USC planning, we are researching Payment in Lieu of Taxes
(PILOT) programs around the country to document "best
practices" mitigating university impact upon local communities.
We are also researching "Town and Gown" agreements,
to document "best practices" for community/college
relationships. In addition to providing research, we have
been participating in campaign strategy meetings.
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Workers
Negotiate in Levi's Closures
In January, Levi Strauss closed its last
two U.S. plant operations, both in San Antonio, laying-off
800 workers. Workers at the San Antonio plants have sewn and
finished jeans for a quarter century. Levi Strauss will be
contracting out this work to manufacturers in foreign countries
with cheaper labor cost. For more than a decade, Levi Strauss
has been closing plants and laying off workers. After massive
layoffs in 1990 Fuerza
Unida quickly emerged. For years, the DataCenter has been
assisting Fuerza Unida's efforts to carry forward the long-term
struggle for Levi workers' rights and to publicize the growing
disparities at home and abroad of apparel industry outsourcing
strategies. In the midst of these new closures, Levi Strauss
is negotiating with the Union of Needletrades Industrial and
Textile Employees (UNITE) over severance packages. Fuerza
Unida is working to make sure that UNITE and the workers have
the best information to negotiate a fair deal. To support
the workers' demands, we provided research on past worker
severance packages and compared these to current executive
compensation and examples of generous executive severance
packages.
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Benefits
for Low-wage Workers
In 2000, the San Francisco Living Wage
Coalition was successful in passing living wage laws in San
Francisco to support low-wage workers - the San Francisco
Minimum Compensation Ordinance and the subsequent Health Care
Accountability Ordinance. The Coalition is now exploring how
to extend these laws to cover more workers and to provide
health coverage for workers' spouses and children. Coalition
members, including no- and low-income workers and their allies,
are conducting an extensive research project to inform their
legislative strategy. To inform the research process and strengthen
members' research skills, we provided a campaign research
training in November that covered research strategy, obtaining
public records, and presenting data effectively. We are giving
a follow-up training in March on research techniques and to
address specific questions Coalition members have on their
particular research projects. We also collaborated with the
Coalition on research to assess San Francisco's implementation
of negotiated workfare reforms.
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