Queens, NY - Immigrant workers at Pur Pac, a food distribution
warehouse supplying many landmark Chinese restaurants, bakeries, and cafes in
Chinatown and around the City, have won a major settlement with the company
after prevailing in a bitterly contested workplace justice campaign. The
comprehensive settlement will return $470,000 in illegally withheld minimum wage
and overtime pay and subjects Pur Pac to a binding code of conduct which
includes protection for collective activity and compels compliance with all
workplace laws including anti-discrimination and health & safety
protections. The workers organized with Focus on the Food Chain, a joint
campaign from Brandworkers and the IWW which is challenging sweatshop conditions
in a sprawling industrial corridor of food processing and distribution
warehouses that service New York City markets and restaurants.
Workers Win Large Settlement at Supplier to Chinese Restaurants After Hard
Fought Campaign
Energetic Worker-Led Campaign Saw Key Customers Drop the Distribution
Warehouse Until Workers' Rights Were Respected
August 18, 2011 - Contact: press (at)
http://brandworkers.org
Queens, NY - Immigrant workers at Pur Pac, a food distribution warehouse
supplying many landmark Chinese restaurants, bakeries, and cafes in Chinatown
and around the City, have won a major settlement with the company after
prevailing in a bitterly contested workplace justice campaign. The comprehensive
settlement will return $470,000 in illegally withheld minimum wage and overtime
pay and subjects Pur Pac to a binding code of conduct which includes protection
for collective activity and compels compliance with all workplace laws including
anti-discrimination and health & safety protections. The workers organized
with Focus on the Food Chain, a joint campaign from Brandworkers and the IWW
which is challenging sweatshop conditions in a sprawling industrial corridor of
food processing and distribution warehouses that service New York City markets
and restaurants.
"No one who wakes up and goes to work every day should have their wages
stolen," said Primo Aguilar, a former worker at Pur Pac and a leading member of
the campaign. "I feel proud today that my co-workers and I stood up, got
organized, and won. This settlement means a great deal for us and our families
but also for our effort with the Focus campaign to win respect for all of New
York City's food processing and distribution workers."
Through grassroots advocacy and protest, the workers persuaded key food
retail customers of Pur Pac to stop doing business with the company until the
dispute was resolved. Pursuant to the settlement, workers' representatives are
notifying customers that the dispute has been favorably resolved. Pur Pac's
product line includes bulk rice, sugar, cooking oil, chop sticks, and soy sauce.
In a previous companion agreement, Pur Pac acknowledged that it was the
successor to two predecessor companies, E-Z Supply Corp. and Sunrise Plus Corp.,
and has recognized the Industrial Workers of the World labor union as the
exclusive collective bargaining agent of Pur Pac employees.
"Every New Yorker depends on workers like the ones at Pur Pac for the food we
all need to survive and thrive," said Daniel Gross, the executive director of
Brandworkers. "But for far too long, the City's food processing and distribution
employees have constituted an invisible workforce, out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
The conditions in the sector are deplorable and systemic but, as the Pur Pac
workers have shown, positive workplace change can and will be won. Today, we're
savoring the workers' hard-earned victory and could not be more proud to be
associated with this march toward justice."
Pur Pac, through successor companies, engaged in massive wage theft against
its Latino and Chinese employees and fired them illegally when they asserted
their rights. By engaging in two sham sales and re-branding efforts, the company
attempted to evade liability even after losing cases in federal court and the
National Labor Relations Board. The victory is the largest yet for Focus on the
Food Chain, which prevailed last year in a high-profile workplace justice
campaign at a seafood processing facility in Queens.
Ridgewood-based Pur Pac lies along a corridor of food factories starting in
East Williamsburg and Bushwick in Brooklyn and extending into Ridgewood and
Maspeth in Queens. Wage theft, retaliation discrimination, and reckless
disregard for worker health and safety are endemic in the sector. Earlier this
year, the corridor claimed the life of Juan Baten, a Guatemalan immigrant
crushed to death at the tortilla factory where he worked, a death that the
Occupational Health & Safety Administration found would have been prevented
if not for the employer's disregard for basic safety precautions.
Focus on the Food Chain promotes a sustainable food system that incorporates
respect for workers' human rights. Through worker-led organizing, direct action,
and litigation, the Focus campaign is challenging and overcoming sweatshop
conditions in New York's food processing and distribution warehouses. The
campaign is currently engaged in a high-octane initiative for workplace justice
at Brooklyn-based Flaum Appetizing Corp., a kosher food company that produces
Sonny & Joe's hummus and distributes Tnuva products, the leading global
kosher cheese brand.
Brandworkers is a Queens-based non-profit organization protecting and
advancing the rights of retail and food employees. Through legal, advocacy, and
organizing support for low-wage employees, Brandworkers promotes employer
compliance with the law and challenges corporate misconduct in the
community.
Founded in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World is a grassroots labor
union dedicated to member-led organizing and workplace democracy.
http://www.iww.org/en/content/workers-win-large-settlement-supplier-chinese-restaurants-after-hard-fought-campaign-energet
