Pickets said the “management’s rights” clause the company is demanding would be used as a tool to gut seniority and other union protections. The big majority of these workers have been at the company more than 12 years, some for as many as 20 to 50 years. “If we accept this they’ll get rid of who they want when we go back,” said Spivery.

The workers, members of Local 1 of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), have been on the picket line since September 16. The majority of workers are African-American or Latino, and women make up 65 percent of the workforce. Strikers on the picket line at the 35th Street plant explain that the company has not backed off its contract demands.

A union statement said that in addition to the management’s rights clause, company demands include: hiring temporary workers with no benefits or union rights; increasing an already long probationary period for new hires; eliminating overtime pay for Saturday work; eliminating sick, personal, and maternity leaves; freezing the defined benefit pension plan for all current workers, and putting new workers on a 401(k) plan that would tie their pensions to the fluctuations of the stock market; requiring workers to make co-payments for their health care, which for a family would come to more than $3,100 a year; and establishing the company’s right to lay off workers out of seniority.

Striker Valeria Eberhardt said another company demand would penalize workers who miss days due to illness or for personal reasons. “They want us to pay $17 a day when we’re off sick. You lose both ways. No pay that day and when your vacation comes they deduct the $17.”

In a union press release, Local 1 president Jethro Head described the company’s offer as “contract gutting and union busting.” The press release said when the company’s demands were placed before the union membership in early September, the workers voted unanimously both to reject the concessions and to go on strike.

The owners are trying to continue production with management personnel and scabs. The company has also beefed up its “security” and is filming the strikers in order to intimidate them.

In face of this the strikers remain firm. On the day this reporter visited the picket line, one of the windier and colder days so far, some of the strikers unloaded a truckload of wood for their burn barrel and others put up two large banners they had painted with messages asking for support. Pickets report that not one member of the union has crossed the picket line in the course of the six-week strike.  
 
 
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