The workers organized their largely Spanish speaking shop with little help from union leadership, now they face firings.
“The company can have all the money in the world, but without workers, they are nothing,” said Angelica Campa, who started working at the company in 2013 and earns $15.40 an hour.The workers began organizing last fall, holding meetings of 40 people weekly at the home of fellow worker Juan Vargas every Saturday to discuss their labor and immigrant rights.
“We work from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on line 4 with some of the heaviest products: cabbage, potatoes, watermelons, coconuts, big squash,” said José Pacheco who has worked at company for 12 years. “For the cabbage, we have to cut off the bad leaves and the root while we’re while packing it. With watermelon, it could be up to 20 pallet-sized crates in a few hours.”
But one of the most galvanizing issues was the heinous wages. The City of Chicago had announced a boost to the $15 minimum wage last fall. The company and Local 703 agreed to reopen contract negotiations one year ahead of the expiration date in April 2024. “That’s when we began to get even more active,” said Campa. Workers began taking action together, pressing for the demands they had generated earlier in the fall as part of a contract fight.
The demands included affordable insurance, an end to mistreatment, and “a union for all,” said Campa, meaning to bring workers in cleaning and other departments into the Teamsters. Other demands had to do with pay compression. Despite over two decades at the company, Vargas said that many workers earned the $15.40 minimum wage pay of a new hire. They also asked for interpretation at meetings and translated materials. Most of the immigrant workers are from Mexico and Central America.
“I think my cleaning work was taken from me on January 20 because the bosses saw me handing out flyers,” said Hernandez in the Labor Board filing. “There cannot be any other reason — and also because my name was listed on the flyer as a contact.” The company posted flyers telling workers solicitation wasn’t allowed on company property. Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers have the right to distribute leaflets, so long as they do so off the clock and in non-work areas. But workers said the illegal company flier is still up.In February, 70 grocery workers at Marano attended a workshop organized by Teamsters for a Democratic Union and CCWR on building a contract action plan with clear bargaining demands.
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