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Vol. 72/No. 44      November 10, 2008

 
On the Picket Line
 
N.Y. restaurant workers
win back pay, overtime
Three dozen food delivery workers employed at Saigon Grill restaurants in Manhattan, New York, have won $4.6 million in back pay, overtime, and damages. U.S. federal district judge Michael Dolinger ruled October 20 that the restaurant’s owners violated federal and state wage laws, paying workers about $2 an hour. Many worked more than 260 hours a month, putting in 12-hour days six to seven days a week and taking home just $520. The case covers wage payments from 1999 to 2007.

“I’m very, very happy about this decision,” deliveryman Yu Guan Ke told the New York Times. “It was worth the fight because we were treated badly for so long.”

In March 2007 the bosses locked out the workers, almost all immigrants from China, at two Saigon Grill restaurants after they refused to sign a contract stipulating they were paid adequately and would not sue the boss. The workers responded with picketing, demanding they get their jobs back with overtime and back pay.

—Brian Williams

Thousands of automobile
workers protest in France
PARIS—Several thousand auto workers from factories throughout France demonstrated at the World Auto Show in Paris October 10 to protest layoffs. The action was organized by the CGT union.

Renault is getting rid of 6,000 throughout Europe, including 4,000 in France. Several Peugeot factories are laying off 2,320 temporary workers. These layoffs began before the start of the current financial crisis.

The angry workers were allowed in the auto show free of charge and immediately made their way to the Renault and Peugeot exhibitions, where they climbed onto the slick displays, whistles and unions banners in hand, chanting “No cars without us!”

At the Renault Sandouville plant near Le Havre, workers have also been organizing frequent strike actions over the past few weeks to oppose the planned layoff of 1,000 workers. At the Ford transmission plant near Bordeaux 500 workers took a special train to Paris October 5 to demonstrate at the auto show inaugural in order to protest Ford’s plans to sell the plant.

—Derek Jeffers

South Korean cops attack
Kiryung Electronics strike
Workers on strike against Kiryung Electronics in Seoul, South Korea, were attacked by police and company thugs while picketing outside the company gates October 15. Twelve members of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) were arrested and others injured.

The unionists, all of them women who were first hired by a subcontracting agency, joined the KMWU in July 2005 in a fight for equality on the job and better working conditions. The company threatened them with dismissal for forming a union. The workers responded by going on strike.

More than three years after the walkout began, 32 workers remain on the picket line, reports the International Metalworkers’ Federation. The unionists are demanding that the strikers be reinstated will full payment of back wages. Kiryung Electronics is a major producer of Sirius Satellite Radios.

—Brian Williams  
 
 
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