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Vol. 79/No. 41 November 16, 2015
Seattle forum: Workers discuss
$15, union organizing battles
BY EDWIN FRUIT
SEATTLE — Low-wage workers involved in the fight to unionize and win
better wages and conditions in fast food, at Walmart and on corporate
farms shared experiences and discussed perspectives at the Militant
Labor Forum here Oct. 23.
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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