Vol. 77/No. 39      November 4, 2013

Coffee factory workers strike over wage cuts in Houston

The contract expired in July, but had been extended during negotiations. “The main issues are the wages. The company proposes cutting wages by 25 to 50 percent and increasing health care costs,” Rick Alleman, secretary treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 455, said on the picket line.

Workers on the picket lines said there had been no pay raise since 2009. The company paid them a 1 percent annual bonus in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Alleman said that 90 percent of production workers in the plant are union members, and that a number of workers who had not joined the union were honoring the strike and staying off the job.

Picketing continues around the clock at all entrances to the plant.

— Steve Warshell and Michael Fitzsimmons

Wash. bakery machine workers end strike,
win better contract

“We pushed the company back on the most important items that caused us to walk out,” Cliff LaPlant, the chief shop steward, told the Militant when strikers returned to work Oct. 9. “No one will be laid off as a result of outsourcing and the language on this in the ratified contract is far better than what they had initially proposed.

“The company can now hire only five temporary workers one time a year and they cannot work more than 120 days,” LaPlant said. “We get a 38 cents per hour raise immediately and on Oct. 15 a 1.5 percent raise as well. The contract is in effect until October 2015.

“In the middle of the strike, the company permanently replaced 57 of the 63 workers and then brought in scabs to do our work,” he noted. “We told them ‘63 out, 63 in.’ The new agreement allows all workers to come back who want to.”

According to LaPlant, four or five of the scabs may be hired as positions open up, but the rest are out.

“I am proud of the solidarity my union brothers and sisters showed with each other,” said former striker Jeff Frederickson. “It was a big victory that anyone who wanted to go back could do so after the company’s original stance.”

LaPlant said the strikers appreciated solidarity visits to picket lines and monetary donations during the strike. “Hats off to Teamsters locals 117 and 174, ILWU [International Longshore and Warehouse Union] Local 19 and their pensioners group, Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity, supporters of the Militant newspaper and other IAM locals,” he said.

“It’s great to be back at work, but we still have a long road ahead,” shop steward Josephine Ulrich said by phone. “We weathered the storm together. We can do anything as long as we stick together as union brothers and sisters.”

— Edwin Fruit

 
 
Related articles:
Strikebusting by transit bosses kills two workers:
Bay Area Rapid Transit pressed scab training at expense of safety
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home