Gerson Castillo, Hunts Point worker and a member of Teamsters Local 202, is seen during the strike at Hunts Point Produce Market in Bronx, NY, on January 18, 2021.
Photo: Courtesy Alex Moore / Teamsters Joint Council 16
As the first images of President Joe Biden’s oval office began circulating online, a striking bust of Labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez quickly commented. The bronze statue, amid the family photos of Biden behind the president’s desk, appears to be a connection to the Latinx and workers’ struggle for which Chavez, founder of the union that would later become the United Farm Workers of America, fought.
Meanwhile, hundreds of striking workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, New York, far from the inauguration, showed what the struggle for workers’ rights on the ground looks like for those forced to work in dangerous proximity throughout this time. pandemic.
Hunts Point is part of the most important food hub in New York and handles most of the fruits and vegetables sold in the five districts. Its workers received praise and press coverage for feeding the city because the public health crisis threatened supply chains.
After risking their lives over the past year, the workers, members of Teamsters Local 202, sought an increase of only $ 1 per hour in their new contract. Negotiations broke down when management refused and gave only 32 cents a boost. The union members voted to strike, starting last Sunday – the first strike in the Hunts Point market in 35 years.
“We worked through a pandemic. I have been working here for 28 years, and it is hard work, ”said Ismael Cancela, a warehouse worker and Local 202 member. He told me that the offer of a 32-cent per hour increase was a slap in the face.
After nearly a full week on the picket line, Teamsters’ leadership announced that a preliminary agreement had been reached. The strikers on Saturday morning voted to approve their new contract, which includes a $ 1.85 wage increase over three years and an end to any payment for family care plans. Although not the full $ 1 increase they demanded and earned, there can be little doubt that the terms of the contract were significantly improved by the strike. Concerns among supporters arose as to whether union leaders were willing to settle too early – a reminder of the importance of decision-making – but the workers nonetheless celebrated the new contract as a victory.
“It simply came to our notice then. There were guys who died. I got the virus and brought it to my family. ”
After decades of anti-worker, anti-union labor laws introduced in this country, the Hunts Point strike comes at a time of strong and powerful labor organization. Last February, the House passed an omnibus labor reform bill, the Protection of the Right to Organization Act, which would overturn a number of rulings against the Supreme Court against workers.
The strike in the market, aimed at an important choke point of commodity circulation, emphasizes the need for collective action, the solidarity it requires and the critical role of strong unions. This kind of hard work, hard work, which significantly sacrifices workers, is the least that powerful business owners have to face if workers are considered “essential” but treated as disposable.
“We’re only essential if it suits them,” said Darren Brenner, a 52-year-old warehouse worker who has been a Teamsters member on the market for 31 years. “There were guys who died. I got the virus and brought it to my family, ‘he told me on Thursday afternoon as he stood with a few dozen employees at the entrance to the distribution center, maintaining the picket line through the quieter day shift. Brenner said that while he and his family fully recovered from Covid-19, numerous other collaborators never returned from the disease.
According to a local 202 spokesman, hundreds of workers were infected with Covid-19, and six died. “Our work is always dangerous. To offer them 32 cents – to think that is what we are worth to them. This is an insult. ”
Photo: Courtesy Alex Moore / Teamsters Joint Council 16
The Bronx’s Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped draw broader attention to Hunts Point, which eludes Washington, DC, to join the picket line. And Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., While repeating as a thousand middle-dressed memes on social media on Wednesday, tweeted his support for the strike. “Essential workers do not have to strike for decent pay,” he said. wrote.
When I spoke to Teamsters on the picket line on Thursday, a number of thanks were expressed to the politicians who made their voices heard. However, the focus of their thanks and praise went to other unions that joined the picket line and contributed supplies and funds: from nurses and teachers to sanitation workers.
“The message that this solidarity shows to city workers across the country is very powerful,” said Danny Kane, president of Local 202 since 1999.
The strike drew 500 supporters to the picket line’s night shifts. Tensions escalated in the early hours of Tuesday morning, when more than 300 police officers in riot gear charged the picket line and arrested five people for allegedly obstructing traffic. The Teamsters condemn the arrests in a tweet, then immediately return to their stated key message: “These essential workers deserve their $ 1 raise.”
Most Hunts Point employees have an average base salary of between $ 18 and $ 21 per hour; some earn just $ 15 an hour. Meanwhile, a statement from the Teamsters said: “Employers in the market, which collectively sell billions of dollars annually, received more than $ 15 million in forgivable PPP loans during the pandemic.” According to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the food hub regularly draws more than $ 2 billion in annual revenue.
Amid this windfall, Jamie Bermudez, a local 202 member, highlights the suffering suffered by workers like him, who became seriously ill during the pandemic. “I almost died from it,” said Bermudez, who was in the hospital for a month and was ill with Covid-19. “I could not breathe, I could not eat.”
Several workers stressed that although treatment may have resulted in the decision to strike during the entire health crisis, a significant increase was needed in all circumstances. “Every price goes up except our wages,” Bermudez said. While the strikers were talking about colleagues who lost to Covid-19 – ‘another Jamie and Victor!’ ‘- A huge Pepsi truck drove past and honked. A white truck pulled up to the barricades, and workers unloaded wooden pallets to burn hot and hot in the icy end of January and days.
Photo: Natasha Lennard / The Intercept
Together with other unions workers, the strike was supported by a proliferation of activist communities and organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America, immigrant rights groups, black liberation fighters, anarchists, and anti-fascists. Angela Fernández, a leading lawyer and immigrant rights activist, has joined the picket line and supported Teamsters in the past through immigrant challenges.
Fernández, who is a candidate for the New York City Council that wants to represent neighboring Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, told me that the intersection of immigrants’ rights and labor struggles can never be missed. “We need to understand the deep-rooted connectedness and intersectionality of this work,” she said, emphasizing that the ‘war on unions’ that Ronald Reagan admits he started was detrimental to working people everywhere.
The wealth of companies and their owners compared to the economic hardship with which those whose labor they exploit has always been unbearable.
Most of the striking workers live locally. Hunts Point has one of the highest concentrations of Latinx residents in all of New York City, and nearly half of the area’s population lives below the federal poverty line. Fernández said organized labor, “is ripe for a revival” with major strikes as an indispensable place of ‘public agitation’.
Although the pandemic has become increasingly acute, the wealth of corporations and their owners has always been unbearable compared to the economic hardships for those whose labor they exploit. Cesar Chavez’s legacy is hampered by his deeply flawed opposition to undocumented immigrants entering the United States, but his statement that ‘we draw our strength from the despair in which we are forced to live’ speaks to this moment of the pandemic and the workers organizing in it. .
It does not have to take the huge risks and losses of a strike to win a decent wage. But it is clear that the rights, protection and livelihoods of workers will not be rendered simply because a liberal centrist president places a statue of a famous trade union leader in his office. As always, the workers and liberation fighters on the front lines will take the lead.
Update: January 23, 2020, 1:49 PM ET
This story has been updated to end some details of the contract for the strike and the votes of employees to approve it.