Working people and unionists in the United States have an opportunity to back an important strike by members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) at Hollander Home Fashions. The workers are fighting for better working conditions, higher wages, and a pension plan. So far, union members have shut down two of the firm's plants in California and Pennsylvania, and workers in Georgia are honoring a picket line set up by strikers from Vernon, California.
The company is trying to keep production going at all three plants by hiring workers through temporary agencies. The union has reached out to those crossing the picket line to explain the issues in the strike and why their lot is with the labor movement, not the bosses' strike-breaking moves. Strikers in Los Angeles, at two plants in Vernon, have spread their message at union meetings, held strike support rallies, and traveled to talk with workers at other Hollander plants across the country.
When the strike expanded this week to Pennsylvania, workers reportedly set up picket lines in a festive mood. They were glad for the chance to stand up to the company, which strengthens the overall struggle and opens the way for more unions to back UNITE in this fight. Signs answering the indignities heaped on workers by the bosses, such as that by one worker, "Chop, Chop, We're on Strike,"--responding to a boss who would tell workers on the job, "Chop, chop, get to work!"--show the confidence of the strikers.
Hollander, a maker of pillows, down comforters, and other home fashions, employs 1,300 people in four states and in Canada. "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," one striker told a meeting in Los Angeles.
Sewers and garment industry workers are among the worst paid in the United States. Most of them work at factories where there is no union representation, and where bosses provide little, if any, benefits or retirement plans. Union members like those at the Hollander plants in Los Angeles comprise a small percentage of the 140,000 workers in the garment industry in California. But skirmishes and strikes by garment workers, laundry workers, and others in UNITE are pointing the way to turn the situation around by extending union organization and relying on the power and capacities of the union membership and the labor movement as a whole. Answering the union's call to support the strikes at Hollander Home Fashion can be another step in this struggle.