Vol. 79/No. 41 November 16, 2015
Ramón Torres, president of the independent farmworkers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia (Families United for Justice), described how berry workers at Sakuma Brothers Farms in Skagit County have held walkouts, marches, rallies and boycotts over the last two years. “We won better conditions in the camps we live in, and a court settlement where workers got back wages for unpaid breaks and overtime,” he said. “And because of our struggle, a federal court ruled that all agricultural workers in Washington state who work on a contract basis are entitled to paid breaks.”
The union is still fighting for a contract at Sakuma and against child labor.
“I’ve been a Walmart worker for 15 years and have been fired twice for my pro-worker activities,” said Mary Watkines, a founding member of OUR Walmart, which campaigns for higher pay, regular hours and better conditions at the retail giant.
“I got involved after one of my co-workers died on the job,” Watkines said. Fearing she would be fired, “my friend came to work in spite of her being ill, then collapsed and later died at the hospital.”
Walmart is the biggest corporation in the world, she said, yet many workers there make such low wages they must rely on food stamps.
“We are asking for $15 an hour for all associates. We want to stop retaliation by managers against workers involved in organizing,” Watkines said.
“We need to help each other and I am glad to be here with the fast-food and farmworkers,” said Gerry Paladan, another fired Walmart worker who is a staff organizer with OUR Walmart and works with the United Food and Commercial Workers union. “I started at Walmart in 2006 and was later fired.” An appeal to reinstate him is pending before the National Labor Relations Board.
Paladan said he cut his leg seriously at work and his boss told him to pour bleach on the wound. When he finally was able to receive medical attention, it took a number of stitches to close the gash.
“I am part of the $15 an hour movement with Working Washington, which organizes fast-food workers,” said Crystal Thompson. “In my six years at Domino’s Pizza I didn’t get any raises until the new minimum wage law was passed by the City Council.” The law raises the city’s minimum wage to $13 as of Jan. 1, 2016, and $15 in 2017.
“People who work in the city ought to be able to afford to live here as well,” Thompson said. “Sometimes I work a 10-hour day with only one break and no lunch. We are short staffed and that puts more pressure on workers. Everyone in the country deserves $15 an hour.
“Look at the airport workers at SeaTac [Seattle-Tacoma International Airport],” she said. “They won the ballot referendum to raise the minimum wage to $15 there fair and square,” but the bosses refuse to pay it.
Bosses attack workers’ gains
“Why is it that when workers win ‘fair and square’ the bosses refuse to carry out what we won?” Mary Martin, chairperson of the Socialist Workers Party in Seattle and a Walmart worker, said. “We need unions and union contracts like the farmworkers are demanding to fight to hold the bosses to the agreements. But the problem is rooted in the system of capitalism. The bosses, the politicians and their government are all stacked against the working class, so as soon as you win something they try to take it back.”“That is why we need a government run in our interests, by working people like us,” she said. “But that won’t happen unless we build a revolutionary working-class movement capable of taking political power out of the hands of the capitalist class. The Socialist Workers Party proposes building a labor party based on the unions, independent of the bosses’ parties, that can mobilize our class for that fight.”
Speakers invited forum participants to take part in a number of upcoming actions that can reinforce each other, including the Nov. 10 national protest actions for $15 and a union, Black Friday protests at Walmart Nov. 27 and the farmworkers’ Dec. 13 Christmas party in Mt. Vernon.
Related articles:
‘We need $15 an hour, full-time work, a union’
Nationwide protests set for Nov. 10
On the Picket Line
New Chrysler contract maintains lower-paid tiers
Stakes high for all workers in Lac-Mégantic frame-up
During class combat rebellious workers become revolutionists
All out Nov. 10 for $15 and a union!
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