Vol. 71/No. 12      March 26, 2007

The strike began after 14 of the 15 unions representing nearly 7,800 workers overwhelmingly rejected the company's contract offer. The company is demanding workers pay much higher health-care premiums, which would rise from $144 a month to $217 a month by November 2009. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina workers there face steep price increases on everything from food to rent. Several thousand striking workers marched through Pascagoula March 12 to press the fight for their demands.

—Brian Williams

Restaurant delivery workers,
locked out in N.Y., fight for union
NEW YORK, March 9—Delivery workers are picketing two Saigon Grill restaurants here on the Upper West Side and in Union Square over inadequate pay and poor working conditions.

The owner, Simon Nget, locked out some 30 workers March 2 after they refused to sign a contract saying that they received adequate wages and stipulating that they would not file a lawsuit against him. Deliveries have been halted at both stores. The picketers are demanding that they be rehired with overtime and back pay.

The workers have joined the Justice Will Be Served Campaign organized by the Chinese Staff and Workers Association. The group has organized some 1,500 service workers in the area. Many of the delivery workers employed by Saigon Grill work 12-hour days, six to seven days a week, at $1.60 per hour. They get no overtime or meal breaks. Workers on the picket line told the Militant that the boss penalizes them with a number of fines. These include a $20 fine for coming back late from a delivery, and a $15 fine for each day they are absent from work for illness or any other reason.

“We kept working under these unfair conditions, because it’s like this everywhere, though Saigon Grill is particularly bad,” Yuguan Ke, one of the workers said. “But then we heard about other workers who fought for better conditions.”

—Eddie Beck  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home