In addition to keeping up picket lines and blocking buses carrying replacement workers into the plants, strikers have built support for their struggle by addressing public meetings, speaking at a high school, and joining pickets of members of the International Association of Machinists at United Airlines. They also addressed a large meeting of the United Teachers of Los Angeles and spoke at an event supporting mushroom workers. Teams of strikers are visiting J.C. Penney stores in the area, asking customers not to buy Hollander products.

Hollander's two plants are located here in Vernon, a small incorporated city with a large number of industrial plants right in the middle of Los Angeles. The workers, who are members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), walked off the job March 9 demanding higher pay and a pension plan from the company. Hollander, which makes pillows, down comforters, and other home fashions, employs 1,300 workers at plants in Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, and in Canada.

"When we're united neither the scabs, the police, nor Hollander can stop us," said Cristina Vazquez, an international vice president of UNITE, who opened the March 27 rally. Vazquez said workers at the Hollander plant in Tignall, Georgia, continue to honor a picket line there set up by workers on strike in Vernon. Union members in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Texas were carrying out solidarity actions, such as signing petitions and holding protests inside and outside the plants, she said.

Union officials announced that joining the rally were farm workers and teachers, as well as laundry workers who have recently won union recognition. Antonio Villaraigosa, Democratic Party candidate for mayor, also addressed the crowd. Miguel Contreras, president of the Los Angeles Central Labor Council, and Carlos Urutia, organizer of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877, also spoke.  
 
'We set an example'
"They said it would be impossible for the janitors to win the battle but we triumphed after a month on strike," said Urutia of the SEIU walkout last year. "And we set an example all over the country. After we won, janitors in many other cities won too."

A spirited march of the unionists and their supporters through Vernon from one Hollander plant to the other was met with blowing horns and raised fist salutes from workers and truck drivers passing by. The marchers chanted "Se ve, se siente, la union esta presente" (You can see it, you can feel it, the union is here).

Breaking a virtual blackout of news since the strike began, the main Spanish- and English-language television stations and newspapers reported on the strike and march the next day. The daily Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión quoted from a statement released by company boss Jeff Hollander that was run as a quarter-page ad in the Sunday edition of the paper. Hollander said he opposed a pension plan for the workers and thought each worker should have the right to make his or her own decision on how to invest for retirement.

"Many employees across the country that are in 401(k) plans have lost a lot of money recently with the fall in the stock market," he said to justify the company's position. He also claimed that Hollander is offering the largest-ever wage increase for the Los Angeles workers.

But UNITE leader Christina Vazquez told the Los Angeles Times that much of the increase is due to a scheduled jump in the California minimum wage. Angelina Andrade, interviewed by La Opinión at the march, said she has worked at Hollander 20 years and earns $7 an hour. She commented on how the company drives the workers to work hard and fast.  
 
Replacement workers
Hollander is contracting with the temporary work agency Labor Ready, is using the Vernon police, and has hired the security company Huffmaster Crisis Management to bring two busloads of replacement workers across the union's picket lines each day. In response, the strikers block the entrance and appeal in Spanish to those in the bus not to cross. The police then move in and open the driveway allowing the scab bus to pass.

Tina Marquez, a sewing machine operator at the Boyle Avenue plant, told the Militant April 2 that around 60 union members have crossed the picket line. The strike is "difficult," she said, "and some are afraid. We need to talk more with those who are thinking of crossing. The majority are still very strong." Strikers report that only four workers have crossed at the Seville Avenue plant.

Among the meetings strikers spoke to was a March 30 Militant Labor Forum at the Pathfinder Bookstore. María Dolores Meléndez, a sewing machine operator, said she had won support from teachers and students after speaking at Huntington Park High School earlier in the day. "Hollander says we don't have a right to a pension and better wages but we should have those rights because we are the ones who produce," she said.

Marta Bonilla, who celebrated her 62nd birthday on the picket line, asked forum participants to excuse her hoarse voice because she had been chanting all day. "We are fighting a just struggle," she said. "I make $6.65 an hour stuffing and boxing pillows and face tremendous pressure from the company to get the job done really fast." Bonilla, who had never spoken at public meetings before the strike, has been out winning support at meetings, classes, and on television.

Ramón Higuera works in shipping and receiving. He described working at Hollander as a "daily humiliation. If our strike was only against Hollander we would have won already. But they bring in the police and the scabs. Hollander pays the agency $18 an hour for each scab and the agency pays each scab $8 an hour. They have money and resources." Higuera said they welcome support on the picket line and were "ready to give support to others like the workers at the airport this week."

Carlos Codon, a UNITE organizer and picket captain, told the forum, "Even with the union presence we have not been able to get wages where they should be with a steady increase. Now they are doing everything to break the strike."
 
 
Related article:
Georgia workers honor pickets  
 
 
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