About 375 workers are employed by the Ft. Lauderdale area clothing company, up from 100 a year ago. Point Blank Body Armor workers make bulletproof vests and riot gear that are sold to the military and police forces. Production is booming, and the company is boasting about its huge sales, government contracts, and profits.

A delegation of workers went to the company office Thursday morning, July 18, during their first break. "We presented the company two options. Either they could begin to negotiate and have the [union certification] elections very soon, or they could stay neutral and see what happens," Isma Sadius told the Militant the following day. "They refused, and asked us all to leave the plant at eleven."

Isma is a sewing machine operator with six years in the plant, making $6.40 an hour. After the meeting with the company, Isma said the bosses gave him a letter saying he no longer worked for Point Blank.

"They said I organized people to say si se puede (Yes, we can) during work hours. But that’s a lie. We said it during break!" Isma told the Militant. "I am not the leader of the union, but the company has chosen me. And even though they have fired me, I will not give up the fight." Later that day, the 31-year-old immigrant from Haiti was arrested on the charge of "breach of the peace." "They said I was blocking traffic," he explained.

"Eight workers comprised the delegation that presented the company with its options. But hundreds more backed them up" outside, said Scott Cooper, Southern District organizing director for the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). "The workers decided to give Point Blank the chance to sign an agreement recognizing the union immediately."

In response to the workers’ demands, the company locked them out of the plant and called in more than two dozen deputies from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to help enforce its antiunion moves. But rather than head home, most workers began to organize a protest outside the plant.

Many took advantage of the time to sign union cards as they rallied in the parking lot. The union had begun collecting signatures four days before and a "majority of the workforce signed in two days," Cooper explained.

The protest turned into a marathon mass union meeting, which adjourned to a local motel and then to the nearby headquarters of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). In addition to the workers speaking about their grievances and what should be done, State senator Kendrick Meek, a Democrat from Miami, and Bruce Raynor, the president of UNITE, addressed the workers.

Workers organized another pro-union action outside the plant the following morning, July 19. The company lifted its lockout and the workers returned to their jobs.

"No water." "Dirty rest rooms with no light and no toilet paper." "No place to eat lunch amid the dust." "The heat." "Favoritism." "Discrimination." This is how Point Blank clothing workers at the Friday protest explained why they are involved in the fight for a union. But their number one complaint is the low wages.

"They don’t treat us like humans," Point Blank worker Jorge Ramos told a local TV station that afternoon. "The salary they give us isn’t anything."

Point Blank has estimated it will generate $350 million in sales from a contract to produce bulletproof vests for the U.S. armed forces, and local, state, and federal police forces. These include the Marine Corps., Army, Navy, Coast Guard, federal marshals, the INS, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, NATO, and the New York Police Department.

A recent press release from Point Blank’s parent company DHB Industries claimed that revenues for the first quarter of 2002 rose 67 percent to a record $33.6 million.

"They pay us the minimum," a 21-year-old inspector told this reporter at the rally. She had met the union four days before. "Today," she said with a smile, "we are in struggle." The worker emigrated from Cuba four years ago and has worked at the plant for a year.

A sewing machine operator explained in Haitian Creole that she has had no raise during three years at the company. "We need a change in the working conditions. There is discrimination. God has given us the union in order to fight."

"They treat you like animals," one worker told the Militant. "They yell at us to get us to work harder" she said.

"The company has its favorites who pal around with the bosses and get more pay. I just work at my machine; but you don’t get recognition for good work. Twice I have gotten a raise. After seven years I only receive $6.65 an hour," another operator told the Militant.

Asked what she would do at work that day, the 21-year-old inspector said, "Continue inspecting, and continue the struggle!"

That day workers won the first fruits of their union struggle: the company provided enough water for the workers and put lights in the rest rooms.

A meeting to gather support for the union-organizing effort is scheduled for July 25 at the CWA union hall in Oakland Park at 7:00 p.m. The struggle will also be featured at the first Jobs with Justice Workers Rights Board Hearing July 27 at the United Teachers of Dade auditorium at 9:30 a.m. This will be followed by an action at Mt. Sinai Hospital, where the largely Haitian nursing home workers are fighting to organize a union.  
 
 
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