Gerson Castillo, a Hunts Point worker and member of Teamsters Local 202, is seen during the strike at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, NY, on January 18, 2021.
Photo: Courtesy of Alex Moore / Teamsters Joint Council 16
As the first images from President Joe Biden’s Oval Office began to circulate online, a bust of labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez attracted quick comment. Nestled among Biden’s family photos behind the president’s desk, the bronze statuette seemed to signal a commitment to Latinx and the workers’ struggles that Chávez, the founder of the union that would later become United Farm Workers of America, fought for. .
Away from the inaugural pomp, meanwhile, hundreds of striking workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, New York, were already demonstrating what the struggle for workers’ rights on the ground is like for those forced to work in dangerous surroundings throughout this pandemic.
Hunts Point is part of the most important food center in New York City, handling most of the fruits and vegetables that are sold in the five districts. Its workers received praise and press coverage for keeping the city fueled while the public health crisis threatened supply chains.
Having risked their lives over the past year, workers, members of Teamsters Local 202, sought an increase of just $ 1 an hour in their new contract. Negotiations failed when management declined, offering an hourly increase of just 32 cents. Union leaders voted to start the strike last Sunday – the first strike in the Hunts Point market in 35 years.
“We work during a pandemic. I’ve been working here for 28 years and it’s hard work, ”said Ismael Cancela, a warehouse worker and a member of Local 202. He told me that offering a 32-cent-an-hour raise was a” slap in the face. “
After almost an entire week on the picket, the Teamsters leadership announced that an interim agreement was reached. On Saturday morning, the strikers voted to approve their new contract, which includes a $ 1.85 salary increase over three years and an end to any direct payments to family health plans. While it is not the total $ 1 increase they demanded and deserve, there is no doubt that the terms of the contract have improved considerably with the strike. Concerns arose among supporters about whether union leaders were willing to make a deal too soon – a reminder of the importance of grassroots decision making – but workers were celebrating the new contract as a victory.
“We are essential only when it suits them. There were guys who died. I got the virus and brought it to my family ”.
After decades of anti-worker and anti-union labor laws established in this country, the Hunts Point strike comes at a time of robust and powerful union organization. Last February, the House passed a comprehensive labor reform bill, the Law on the Protection of the Right to Organize, which would overturn a series of anti-Supreme Court decisions.
The market strike, aimed at a key bottleneck in the circulation of goods, underlines the need for collective action, the solidarity it requires and the critical role of strong unions. This type of high-risk, arduous labor action – which involves significant worker sacrifices – is the least that powerful entrepreneurs must face when workers are considered “essential” but treated as disposable.
“We are essential only when it suits them,” said Darren Brenner, a 52-year-old warehouse worker who has been a member of Teamsters in the market for 31 years. “There were guys who died. I caught the virus and brought it to my family, ”he told me on Thursday afternoon, standing at the barricaded entrance to the distribution center with a few dozen co-workers, maintaining the picket line during the quietest day shift. Brenner said that although he and his family have fully recovered from Covid-19, several other co-workers “never returned” from the disease.
According to a spokesperson for Local 202, hundreds of workers were infected with Covid-19 and six died. “Our jobs are always dangerous. For them to offer us 32 cents – to think that this is what we are worth to them. It’s an insult. “
Photo: Courtesy of Alex Moore / Teamsters Joint Council 16
The Bronx Himself Democratic MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped draw more attention to Hunts Point, avoiding Washington, DC, on the day of inauguration to join the picket. And Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., While iterating a thousand gloved-dressed memes on social media on Wednesday, tweeted his support for the strike. “Essential workers should not go on strike for a decent wage,” he writeand.
When I spoke with the Teamsters on the pickets on Thursday, several expressed gratitude for the politicians who lent their voices to the effort. The focus of their thanks and praise, however, was on other union workers who joined the picket line and contributed supplies and funds: from nurses and teachers to sanitation workers.
“The message that this solidarity sends to city workers across the country is very powerful,” said Danny Kane, president of Local 202 since 1999.
The strike drew up to 500 supporters for the picket’s night shifts. Tensions rose in the early hours of Tuesday, when more than 300 police officers with riot gear attacked the pickets and arrested five people for allegedly obstructing traffic. The Teamsters condemned the arrests in a tweet, then immediately returned to the declared key message: “These essential workers deserve their $ 1 raise”.
Most Hunts Point workers have an average base salary of between $ 18 and $ 21 an hour; some earn only $ 15 an hour. Meanwhile, as a statement by the Teamsters noted, “Employers in the market, who collectively billions of dollars in annual sales, received more than $ 15 million in forgivable PPP loans during the pandemic.” The food center regularly pulls in more than $ 2 billion in annual revenue, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation.
In the midst of this windfall, Jamie Bermudez, a member of Local 202, highlighted the plight suffered by workers like him, who fell seriously ill during the pandemic. “I almost died of it,” said Bermudez, who was hospitalized and sick with Covid-19 for a month. “I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t eat.”
Several workers emphasized that, although their treatment during this health crisis may have galvanized the strike decision, a significant increase was necessary in any circumstances. “All prices are rising, except for our wages,” said Bermudez. While the strikers talked about colleagues lost to Covid-19 – “another Jamie and Victor!” – a huge Pepsi truck passed, honking in support. A white truck stopped at the barricades, and workers unloaded wooden pallets to burn for warmth on the cold nights and days of late January.
Photo: Natasha Lennard / The Intercept
Along with other union members workers, the strike won the support of several activist communities and organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America, immigrant rights groups, black liberation fighters, anarchists and anti-fascists. Angela Fernández, a leading lawyer and activist for immigrants’ rights, joined the picket line, supporting Teamsters who have faced immigration challenges in the past.
Fernández, who is a candidate for New York City Council and seeks to represent neighbors Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, told me that the intersection of immigrant rights and the labor struggle can never be overlooked. “We need to understand the deep-rooted connection and intersectionality of this work,” she said, emphasizing that the “war on unions”, which she credits Ronald Reagan for having started, has been damaging to workers everywhere.
The wealth of corporations and their owners in comparison to the economic difficulties faced by those whose work they exploit has always been intolerable.
Most striking workers live locally. Hunts Point has one of the highest concentrations of Latinx residents in all of New York City, and almost half of the area’s population lives below the federal poverty line. Organized work, Fernández said, “is ripe for a resurgence” with major strikes as an indispensable locus of “public unrest”.
Although they are increasingly accentuated by the pandemic, the wealth of companies and their owners in comparison with the economic difficulties faced by those whose work they exploit has always been intolerable. Cesar Chavez’s legacy is complicated by his deeply flawed opposition to undocumented immigrants entering the United States, but his statement that “we draw our strength from the very desperation we were forced to live in” speaks to this pandemic moment and the workers who are organize in it.
You must not take the high risks and pay the losses of a strike to earn a decent salary. But it is clear as the day that workers’ rights, protections and livelihoods will not be guaranteed simply because a liberal center president puts the statue of a famous union leader in his office. As always, liberation workers and fighters on the front lines will lead the way.
Update: January 23, 2020, 13:49 ET
This story has been updated to include some details of the contract that ended the strike and the vote of the workers to approve it.