- PLEASE SHARE WIDELY --
ALL OUT THIS SATURDAY
RALLY & MARCH SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 11:00 AM
GATHER AT 123 ALLEN STREET near the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Honor International Women’s Day with Solidarity in the Struggle Today
Solidarity RALLY with fired immigrant laundry workers, at LIOX CLEANERS (123
Allen St. between Delancey & Rivington), then march to the site of the Triangle
Shirtwaist Fire
STOP LIOX/WASH SUPPLY'S UNION-BUSTING CAMPAIGN AGAINST IMMIGRANT WOMEN LAUNDRY
WORKERS!
New York is a union town. Union-busting won’t go down, let alone here on the
Lower East Side, where mass strikes by immigrant women workers – and protest
against the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 – led to International Women’s
Day. Honoring that legacy, in solidarity with workers’ struggle today, RALLY
Saturday, March 6, 11 AM, at 123 Allen St. (near Delancey), then MARCH to the
site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire!
1911-2021: ¡La lucha continúa! ¡Unión, fuerza, solidaridad!
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This Saturday, March 6, starting at 11:00 AM in front of Liox Cleaners, 123
Allen Street (between Delancey and Rivington on Manhattan's Lower East Side),
there will be a march and rally "Honoring International Women's Day with
Solidarity in the Struggle Today."
The protest will demand "Stop Liox/Wash Supply's union-busting campaign against
immigrant laundry workers." It will highlight working-class solidarity, from
NYC's laundry workers and the Hunts Point market workers in the Bronx ,who
inspired us with their January strike -- to Bessemer, Alabama, where Amazon
workers, many of them African American women, are fighting for unionization.
As a young Teamsters steward recently commented to me at an Amazon workers'
solidarity event: these struggles "can be a catalyst." I strongly believe that
now is the time for all of us to help make that happen.
Please see the attached flier for this Saturday's protest. (The text of the
flier is reproduced above.)
Labor/immigrant, women's rights, anti-racist, left, community, student and
other activists are asked to help spread the word and come out THIS SATURDAY,
MARCH 6 AT 11:00 AM to rally at Liox Cleaners, 123 ALLEN STREET (between
Delancey & Rivington, near the Lower East Side Tenement Museum), then march
past the Amazon-owned Whole Foods on Houston, pausing to show solidarity with
Amazon workers, and then continuing on to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire.
Facebook event page for Saturday protest:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1035816260244608
For further information on the Liox/Wash Supply struggle, below is material
from a press release that was sent for the previous action. It may be helpful
in helping build for the upcoming action this coming Saturday, 11:00 AM, 123
Allen Street (between Delancey and Rivington), near the Lower East Side
Tenement Museum in Manhattan.
SJ
***************************************************************************************************************************
Protesting Union-Busting Against Immigrant Laundry Workers,
Labor, Immigrant and Women's Rights Activists
Will March to Triangle Shirtwaist Site on Saturday
What: Rally and march to protest union-busting and firing of immigrant women
laundry workers
When: 11:00 a.m., Saturday
Where: Rally at Liox Cleaner, 123 Allen St., then march to Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire site
CONTACT: Rosanna Rodríguez, 347-440-3665, rosaran18@xxxxxxxxx
Labor, immigrant rights, women’s rights and community activists will hold
a protest rally and march...denouncing “union-busting against immigrant women
laundry workers, who were fired for organizing a union,” said Rosanna
Rodríguez, an organizer with the Laundry Workers Center. Protesters plan to
rally in front of Liox Cleaners on the Lower East Side, then march to the site
of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire near Washington Square Park.
On February 19, the Liox laundry chain fired the immigrant women workers
of Wash Supply Laundromat. The owners then closed the Upper West Side location
and removed the machines. The company “threw the workers out of their jobs and
onto the street to try to starve them into submission and punish them” for
their unionization drive, which was sparked by “starvation wages and unsafe
conditions that endangered them amidst the pandemic,” states a flier for the
protest. “Days before the unionization vote, the company fired one of the women
workers to try to intimidate them. It didn’t work: the workers won the union
vote on January 29. Now on February 19 the company fired them all – it’s a
blatant attempt to bust the union and stop their courageous example from
spreading. All workers have a stake in this struggle,” said Rodríguez.
Organizers have linked the cause of immigrant workers in New York
“laundries and other modern-day sweatshops” to that of all workers doing
difficult and dangerous jobs throughout the country who are “tired of being
treated as essential but disposable.” Wash Supply workers recently participated
at a Union Square rally supporting Amazon workers in Alabama who are engaged in
a unionization campaign. One of them, Yuriana, said: “We are here in support of
Amazon Workers, because we know how they feel right now. Everyone that comes to
this country comes for a better life. Amazon workers: you have the power and we
have it too.”
The laundry worker organizers have also highlighted solidarity with the
largely African American and Latino workers of Hunts Point market in the Bronx
who went on strike last month. “Now the women workers of Wash Supply are
standing up for the rights of us all,’ said Rodríguez. “We need to bring out
the power of workers solidarity, immigrant rights, labor and student activists,
demanding: Rehire the Wash Supply workers now.”
Protest organizers note that Saturday’s rally will take place just one
block away from the Tenement Museum, which focuses on the history of immigrant
laborers on the Lower East Side. Their protest flier states: “New York is a
union town. A lot of it started right here on the Lower East Side, where brutal
exploitation led to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and immigrant women workers’
strikes gave birth to International Women’s Day. Will we stand for
union-busting here today? Hell no!”
Saturday’s rally and march will “honor International Women’s Day and the
fight of women workers today,” said Rodríguez. “International Women’s Day is
coming up soon. We call on the whole labor movement to oppose this
union-busting and demand the workers be rehired. We need to join together to
show what the power of labor solidarity means today. Our protest and march this
Saturday is part of the whole fight for the rights of all workers, of women, of
immigrants, of everybody who stands together against discrimination and racism
of every kind today. Workers have the power, if we use it. The Triangle
Shirtwaist fire happened 110 years ago – but the struggle continues today,”
said Rodríguez.
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Attachment:
PHOTO OF FLIER for 6 March 2021 WP-IWD march & rally -2.jpg
Description: PHOTO OF FLIER for 6 March 2021 WP-IWD march & rally -2.jpg
