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Angelica laundry workers sign contract, press for union at other plants nationwide |
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BY MAGGIE TROWE BOSTON—Three weeks after workers at Angelica laundries in Batavia, New York, and Wichita Falls, Texas, held one-day walkouts to press for progress on contract negotiations, their union, UNITE HERE, reached an agreement with Angelica Textiles Services. In a June 14 joint news release, UNITE HERE and the company announced a contract at seven plants in California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Workers are voting on the settlement. The union and the bosses also signed a 10-year agreement setting the procedure for workers to seek union representation at the company’s nonunion workplaces. For some plants the company agreed to “card-check recognition,” whereby the bosses promise to negotiate a contract if a majority of workers sign union cards. In other plants there will secret ballot elections. Angelica, the largest hospital laundry in the United States, employs 7,000 workers at 35 plants, 23 of which are currently unionized. Sandra Reu, a worker at Wichita Falls, told the Times Record that workers face hazards such as hypodermic needles mixed in with the laundry, and extreme heat unmitigated by fans.
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