The 89 workers, in their majority women, have been without a contract since last August. Through daily picket lines and other efforts, including a rally on Martin Luther King Day, they are reinforcing their strike and building solidarity in the area.

The workers voted to strike after the company pulled out of negotiations, and threatened to load half the cost of health insurance onto the employees. If the unionists refused, the bosses said, the coverage may be eliminated.

"If we have to pay that much for health insurance we will be working for pennies," Theresa Lesher, 30, told the Militant during a visit to the picket line. Lesher has been at the plant for 10 years and said that this is the only job she has ever had.

During the second week of the strike, Leonard Springer, an executive of the parent company Leventhal, Ltd., gave 60 days notice that he might close the plant, directing his warning at the Lykens mayor and the union, UNITE officials stated. Leventhal Ltd., is based in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

No sooner had the notice been issued than semi-tractor trailers, bearing Tennessee plates and accompanied by state troopers, began loading shirts and machinery from the plant. According to the Pottsville Republican-Herald, UNITE officials said that Springer had "dismissed the last remaining company supervisor."

Despite the bitter cold, the strikers are maintaining their picket shifts during daytime hours, and say they are determined to see the fight through. On January 20, Martin Luther King Day, the workers built solidarity with the struggle at a rally in front of the plant.

"Martin Luther King stood for civil rights for all, and we are fighting for civil rights," said Edith Barry, who has worked at the plant for 20 years. "We wanted to make a stand." Ninety percent of the workers came to the rally, she said.

This is the first strike at Libro Shirt, which opened in 1921 and was the only factory in the area to remain open during the 1930s Great Depression, reported striker Sue Snyder.

She has taken on the task of sawing wood at home for the fire barrels that help the strikers keep warm while out in the cold. Lykens lies in a valley in the southern section of the anthracite coal region where temperatures have been falling to zero.

Snyder was one of more than 20 strikers who attended a union organizing rally January 15 in Washington, D.C., by workers at Linens of the Week. On January 17, these 250 laundry workers in Washington and Baltimore voted 2-1 to join UNITE.

Both UNITE international president Bruce Raynor and UNITE Mid-Atlantic regional director Harold Bock have visited the Libro picket line. The union announced January 17 that Local 317-C had won a favorable ruling on a November arbitration hearing on unfair labor practices the union charged against the company.

While welcoming the ruling, Local 317-C president Faye Shutt said, "We may have won the case, but we’re still not back to work." Shutt added, "We plan to stand together until this is over."

Janet Post works as a sewer at Hollander Home Fashions in Frackville, Pennsylvania, where she is a member of UNITE Local 133.  
 
 
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