Rivera is president of Local 125 of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), which represents 300 workers on strike at this plant as well as See's candy plants in three other locations. Workers at See's set up picket lines September 21; the company had never been struck before.

Workers are fighting for a higher starting wage and for the company to respect seniority. Currently, starting pay is $6.50 an hour. Workers can only get raises after working 800 hours, and benefits and seniority only after 1,000 hours, but in many cases See's lays off workers before that. When they are recalled from layoff, they must start accumulating hours all over again.

"People are called back from layoff out of seniority. We have plant-wide seniority but in reality the company picks and chooses," said Paulette Stabile, a shipping clerk who has worked at See's for 37 years.

The company is demanding a workweek of four 10-hour days, with overtime paid only after 40 hours in one week. The workers want to maintain eight-hour shifts. They are also demanding improved pensions.

"There is a big turnover with new hires because of the fast pace of the production line. The strike is to change conditions for the better for everyone," said Rivera.

One worker who had worked only three days before the strike explained that she joined the strike because of experiences with abuse by employers at a previous job.

"I knew that if they're on strike, it's for better conditions for everyone, including me and that's why I'm supporting the strike," said the worker, who asked that her name not be used.

The company has beefed up security and tried to intimidate the strikers by using video cameras.

The strike has already won support from other workers. Safeway workers and others have donated food. UPS workers and members of the International Association of Machinists at United Airlines have stopped by the picket line at the plant, which is located near the San Francisco airport.

Jimmy Lee, who has worked at Guitar Chocolate for seven years and is a member of International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Local 6, reported, "Every day I spend a couple hours at the picket lines and I will keep doing it until the strike is over. About 10 workers from Guitar Chocolate come to picket during their lunch every day."

"See's has a plant in Carson, California, whose workers are in Local 83 of our union. We want to let them know there is potential for us to go there, just like the Earthgrains strikers in Fort Payne, Alabama, sent people to California," reported Ken Young, business agent of BCTGM. The workers at the Earthgrains bakery in Alabama, members of the same union as those at See's, won important contract gains through their recent strike, during which strikers visited fellow workers at Earthgrains bakeries in several states who responded by honoring their picket lines.

Deborah Liatos is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.  
 
 
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