BY MICHEL DUGRÉ
MONTREAL - "This is a fight for respect," said Marie
SimEon, one of 1,300 members of the Union of Needeltrades,
Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) who launched a
strike for a first contract here on January 21.
The workers make stockings in two different plants of the Bas Iris company. Some 400 workers in one plant knit and sew the stockings. The 900 workers at the other plant dye, press, package, and ship them. More than 90 percent of workers are Black, the vast majority of them from Haiti. About half the workforce are women. They earn less on average than most other garment workers in Quebec.
Iris workers rejected the latest company offer with a 93 percent majority, after giving their union a unanimous strike mandate. The company offered wage increases of 20, 15, and 10 cents an hour for the next three years to workers who are at or below an arbitrary classification it set up for this first contract. For the many workers it judges are paid too much, the company proposes to freeze their wages until they get down to their classification. These workers would get lump sums equivalent to 2,000 hours at 20 cents an hour for the first year, at 7.5 cents for the second year and 5 cents for the last year of the contract. Strikers think a majority of them would fall into this category, especially those who are older and more experienced.
"We're not allowed to speak during work time. We're not allowed to go to the bathroom 30 minutes before and after breaks," said Siméon. "We always have a boss on our back. In a plant big as this one, there is no infirmary. One pregnant woman who was bleeding was put on the floor of the rest room. There is no heat in the restroom nor hot water." To this day, hundreds of workers in the two plants have no breaks at all, not even for lunch.
"Until we got the union in July 1998, the bosses got used to mistreating workers," said Jorge Salcedo, who works in the shipping department. "They would point their finger at you, without even saying your name, and indicate where they wanted you to go. There was no seniority system."
The company has grown rapidly over the last few years. Until 1993, there were less than 300 workers. "The boss, Andrew Badia, made his money with our own blood," said Siméon. "But to give you an idea of the respect he has for us, every time he crosses the picket line he gives us the finger."
"We have had to wage a long fight before we got to where we are now," she said.
Last year, before they had a union, workers waged a strike in order to get improvements in their working conditions. Just before Christmas they waged another strike over the refusal by the company to give them their annual bonus, representing in some cases up to $200. "We saw that as an attack on our union," said Siméon. This question has not been settled yet.
Workers noted changes since the union was certified in July 1998. "We couldn't take breaks to go to the toilet and now we can," said Marie-Florence Sanon. "Before the union, we were treated like animals. You couldn't even scratch yourself without a supervisor yelling, `Get back to work.' "
The strike at Iris follows the victory won in December by 4,000 UNITE members in the men's clothing industry, who struck against an attempt by their bosses to lower wages of new workers. Some 200 workers at the Agmont plant are also currently waging a fight for a first contract.
Workers at Iris have been inspired by these fights. They are picketing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The picket lines, despite the Montreal bitter cold, are lively, with drums and other music instruments.
Michel Dugré is a UNITE member at the SFI Apparel plant in Montreal. Beverly Bernardo contributed to this article.