| March to End Wage Slavery
By 460 
January 29, 2007
The IWW will be marching to END WAGE SLAVERY and to defend workers' right to organize on Monday February 19, 2007.
The march will begin at 10am and proceed through the industrial areas of Bushwick, Williamsburg and Ridgewood. More details to come.
The IWW organizers, the workers from Handyfat and EZ Supply (Sunrise Plus) who were fired for organizing their own union, will be holding a planning meeting this THURSDAY, FEB 1, 2007 at 6:30 PM
at
IBT Local 808
22-43 Jackson Avenue
Long Island City, NY 11101
For more info call Billy J Randal at 646 645-6284
#7 to 45th Road, Courthouse Square
G train to Courthouse Square
E to 23rd ELY
More Photos: http://antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/photo-gallery/2007_mlk_day/
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IWW Benefit Show for Fired Warehouse Workers
By 
HandyFat workers rise up!
January 22, 2007
IWW Benefit Show for Fired Warehouse Workers
Saturday, January 27th @ 71 Troutman St., Bklyn., NY.
Doors open @ 8. Music @ 9.
$7 before 10pm. $10 after 10pm.
'Red Card' specials all night!
$2 beers. $3 cocktails.
In an attempt to rise out of sweatshop conditions, local workers in the Brooklyn wholesale food distribution industry have engaged in strikes, protests, and filed lawsuits alleging minimum wage and overtime violations. Over 2 dozen workers from 2 warehouses were fired in the past month in retaliation for their union membership and immigration status. These workers need your support as they struggle to enforce the minimum wage and demand their right to organize.
So… WHERE BROOKLYN AT!?!
It's time to show your love for the community of which we are all an integral part.
Good times, great music, and an even better cause:
Featuring LIVE performances by:
- The Set of Red Things: www.myspace.com/thesetofredthings
- the Dynamite Plan: www.myspace.com/dynamiteplan
- Hi Coup: www.myspace.com/hicoup
- Gordo Brega: www.myspace.com/gordobregadto
*** Then dance the night away with DJ Mikey Mike, spinning the best hip hop, R&B, and funk of the past two decades! ***
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Saturday, Jan. 20th: March down Knickerbocker to demand equal rights
By T & A ![]()
January 17, 2007
Immigrant Workers Fighting Back!
March down Knickerbocker to demand equal rights for immigrant workers!
Join Us Saturday January 20th and Demand Justice!
Saturday at 11am meet up at Make The Road by Walking - Menahan and Myrtle .
March with us down Knickerbocker Ave
first stop Associated supermarket and then to Handyfat!
In an attempt to rise out of sweatshop conditions, immigrant workers in Brooklyn have engaged in strikes, Boycotts protests, and filed lawsuits alleging systematic wage and overtime violations.
Join Make the Road by Walking and the IWW in a march through Bushwick to protest the widespread failure to pay immigrant workers minimum wage and overtime throughout Bushwick. At Associated Supermarket owners have committed egregious wage violations against their workers, including failure to pay minimum wage and overtime, and having some workers paid in tips only with absolutely no benefits. At Handyfat, a warehouse that distributes restaurant supplies, 22 workers were illegally fired over the holidays for organizing a union with the IWW and demanding back pay for years of failure to pay minimum wage and overtime.
We will be meeting up at 11AM at Menahan and Myrtle in Bushwick
For more info on Associated visit www.maketheroad.org
For more info on the IWW warehouse workers check out www.iww.org or www.wobblycity.org
To get involved email: IWW.NYC@gmail.com
Directions:
By Subway
Brooklyn-bound L Train
Take the L to the Myrtle-Wyckoff stop. Walk down Myrtle Avenue on the same side of the street as the Kentucky Fried Chicken (underneath the train tracks). Continue to Grove Street four blocks down and take a left. Make the Road by Walking is about halfway down the street on the right.
Queens-bound M Train
Take the M to the Knickerbocker stop. Walk down Myrtle Avenue under the train tracks on the right side of the street; there will be a Citibank on the left. Walk three blocks to Grove and take a right. Make the Road by Walking is about halfway down the street on the right.
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Sweatshop Workers Fired En Masse For Organizing a
By IU 460 ![]()
January 09, 2007
For Immediate Release:
Industrial Workers of the World IU 460
January 9, 2006
Contact: Billy Randel, 646-645-6284
Sweatshop Workers Fired En Masse For Organizing a
Union
Anti-Immigrant Backlash In Brooklyn Leaves Warehouse
Employees Without a Job in the New Year
Brooklyn, NY- Twenty-two Mexican and Chinese immigrant
workers at two Chinese food warehouses here, in a
fight against sweatshop conditions, have been fired in
retaliation for their efforts. Both employers had
negotiated contracts with the workers’ union, the
Industrial Workers of the World, but repudiated their
agreements without warning and fired all of their
union employees. The employers told workers that they
were being fired for failure to produce legal
immigration documents, but when one worker did produce
legal documententation, he was ignored. The union
believes the sudden demand for immigration documents
was a pretext for a concerted attack on a burgeoning
organizing campaign in what had been a non-union
industry built on callously exploited immigrant labor.
"This is horrible--we make him money and now he tosses
us into the street like we're garbage," said Pedro
Hidalgo Campos, a fired union worker, referring to
Handyfat owner Dennis Ho. "Just because we asked for
fair wages and decent treatment."
In an attempt to rise out of sweatshop conditions,
workers at the two companies, Sunrise Plus Corp.
(formerly EZ-Supply Corp.) and Handyfat Trading Inc.,
have engaged in strikes and protests, and have filed
lawsuits complaining of systematic minimum wage and
overtime violations. The firings come shortly after
the companies, which supply food and supplies to many
popular Asian restaurants in New York City, hired a
new lawyer known for a no-holds-barred approach.
Workers in the United States must be paid the minimum
wage and have a right to organize regardless of
immigration status.
"You think you can kill us but you can't," said IWW
organizer, Billy Randel. "We're a scrappy bunch and
we're used to fighting. This union is not going to go
away."
In addition to filing anti-retaliation legal actions,
the union is picketing the employers and has called
for a march on Martin Luther King Day against
EZ-Supply, Handyfat, and two other recalcitrant food
warehouses where workers have joined the union seeking
to better their very difficult working conditions.
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Mass Firing of Immigrant Workers! In Brooklyn, NO WAY!!!
By IWW 
January 09, 2007
Mass Firing of Immigrant Workers!
In Brooklyn, NO WAY!!!
Workers Thrown Out Of Their Job For Forming a Union
Join Us On MLK Day and Demand Justice!
MONDAY January 15 at 11am
Morgan stop on the L train – Morgan Ave & Harrison St.
Join the IWW in celebrating Martin Luther King Jr's birthday with a march through industrial Brooklyn to protest the illegal firings of 22 warehouse workers over immigration status. We will be meeting up at 11AM at Morgan Ave and Harrison St. in Bushwick (L train to Morgan stop).
In an attempt to rise out of sweatshop conditions, workers in the Brooklyn food warehouses have engaged in strikes and protests, and filed lawsuits complaining of systematic wage and overtime violations. In retaliation for their efforts they were cynically fired over the New Year holiday.
"Our needs are identical with labor's needs: Decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children, and respect in the community." - Martin Luther King Jr.:
For more info check out www.iww.org or www.wobblycity.org
Email: IWW.NYC@gmail.com
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Mass Firing of Immigrant Workers! In Brooklyn, NO WAY!!!
By IWW
January 09, 2007
Mass Firing of Immigrant Workers!
In Brooklyn, NO WAY!!!
Workers Thrown Out Of Their Job For Forming a Union
Join Us On MLK Day and Demand Justice!
MONDAY January 15 at 11am
Morgan stop on the L train – Morgan Ave & Harrison St.
Join the IWW in celebrating Martin Luther King Jr's birthday with a march through industrial Brooklyn to protest the illegal firings of 22 warehouse workers over immigration status. We will be meeting up at 11AM at Morgan Ave and Harrison St. in Bushwick (L train to Morgan stop).
In an attempt to rise out of sweatshop conditions, workers in the Brooklyn food warehouses have engaged in strikes and protests, and filed lawsuits complaining of systematic wage and overtime violations. In retaliation for their efforts they were cynically fired over the New Year holiday.
"Our needs are identical with labor's needs: Decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children, and respect in the community." - Martin Luther King Jr.:
For more info check out www.iww.org or www.wobblycity.org
Email: IWW.NYC@gmail.com
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EZ-Supply and Amersino warehouse workers fight back - IWW ring in the New Year
By Diane Krauthamer & Charles Fostrom 
January 03, 2007
Before the sun rose over Brooklyn on a windy and brisk January morning, more than 50 foodstuffs workers and their supporters rang in the New Year with pickets to demand their basic rights as workers. The actions, held on the morning of Jan. 2 in front of local foodstuffs distributors, Amersino Marketing Group and EZ-Supply, were organized by the Food and Allied Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), I.U. 460.
The pickets began at 5 AM, when workers braved the cold in front of Amersino to demand unpaid wages and overtime from their boss and to highlight a civil suit that they will file with the help of the IWW in federal court. According to the IWW, this was a “friendly reminder” to their bosses that the New York State minimum wage will be increasing to $7.15 an hour, a figure which organizers say has been “conveniently overlooked in the past.”
In June 2005, Amersino employees filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor over wage and hour violations: they were often working in excess of 65 hours per week and receiving $300 to $350 for their labor, sometimes even less. In the months following the complaint, the DOL took no action, and frustrated workers who had to deal with continuous abuse from their boss, owner Yu Q "Henry" Wang. With the help of the Brooklyn-based community center Make the Road by Walking / Se Hace el Camino al Andar, these workers were able to retain a private lawyer to file new charges in federal court. more info here
According to the IWW, Wang robbed workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages, responded by threatening them, and deceitfully rigged an NLRB union election, and fired two union leaders
Five wildcat strikes throughout March and April 2006 were held in response to these managerial actions—on March 25th, when unionized workers marched on their plant, Wang, realizing that his employees were threatening to strike, reinstated two fired workers and agreed to start paying the minimum wage. However, from April 20 until May 2, workers were locked out of their plant, and five workers were illegally terminated for federally protected union activity.
EZ-Supply workers first joined with the IWW in February 2006, and throughout the following months, the union put pressure on the company to meet at the negotiating table.
EZ-Supply owner Lester Wen refused to bargain in good faith after workers won an NLRB union election, and in response, the union strategically appealed to EZ-Supply’s customers, such as restaurants in Park Slope, the Upper West Side and the Village, to convince them to purchase their supplies through other companies.
After months of inactivity, in late November 2006, Wen met workers at the negotiating table and tentatively agreed to recognize the union, to increase the wage from $1.70 per hour to $2.45, to create a grievance procedure, to give workers paid vacation and sick days, to refrain from discriminating against workers based on their immigration status, and to purge workers’ records of union activities. ( http://www.iww.org/en/node/3052)
Following this negotiation, on December 26 Wen went back on his agreement by making threats to workers regarding their immigration status. Such threats increased as workers upped the anti, and on the morning of December 28, the IWW served EZ-Supply with a federal complaint regarding back wages and overtime. That evening, Wen fired all of EZ-Supply’s wobbly workers. In response, workers walked off the job in a wildcat strike and only returned after the union assured them that legal action would be taken. ( http://www.iww.org/en/node/3120)
In the week leading up to the Jan. 2 picket, IWW members and supporters continued to leaflet EZ-Supply’s customer restaurants, such as the Park Slope Food Co-op, to inform them about such anti-worker practices and encourage them to purchase from other places, and to put further pressure on EZ-Supply to respect the rights of its workers.
Although the union struggles at both Amersino and EZ-Supply have been both long and hard-fought, workers at these companies are not alone. The IWW has an organized presence at three other foodstuffs distributors in the area - Giant Big Apple Beer Ltd., Handy Fat and Top City. Organizers say that although all of these workers haven’t won yet, they are standing together in solidarity and refuse to give in.
In the past year, the union’s first non-majority contract in the industry was signed at the distributor Handy Fat, outlining basic wage and overtime stipulations as well as a grievance procedure. Furthermore, on December 26, 2006, the IWW served Giant Big Apple Ltd. with a class-action lawsuit.
This occurred about one year after workers filed a wage and hour complaint with the DOL. No further action was taken by the DOL, and workers allege that their boss continued to violate state and federal wage laws—they consulted with NYC labor attorney Stuart Lichten, and filed a class action against Giant Big Apple on behalf of all present and former employees of the company. ( http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/81320.html)
Following the recent actions, the IWW has received scattered reports from warehouse workers in northern Brooklyn and Queens that some of the bosses are now starting to pay minimum wage and overtime.
Amersino worker Diego Lezama said that once the union had a significant presence in their shop, the support and solidarity branched out from there. Recently, he told IWW organizer Billy Randal that after the boss told him “ ‘You brought this f--king union in here and I’m gonna get you for it,’” workers responded by spontaneously walking out en masse which forced Wen to apologize for his comments— the first time he had ever apologized for anything. Diego felt empowered by the solidarity and support from his fellow workers, and told Randal “We aren’t going to take this anymore. They have to treat us like we’re human beings, not slaves.”
By Diane Krauthamer & Charles Fostrom diane@indymedia ; crashtestcharlie@yahoo.com http://www.iww.org
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