It is the nation’s largest wholesale product market – dubbed “Costco on steroids” – and the Nerve Center for Food Supplies in New York City, which supplies more than half of the fruits and vegetables that are taken out in box boxes and on restaurant plates and supermarket shelves. Ends.
But the strike on the demand for a $ 1-hour pay-per-hour increase in the Hunts Point produce market in the Bronx has denied its performance, causing some products to rot and threatening to disrupt the normal seamless supply chain.
The last strike in 1986 caused a shortage of everything from artichokes to grapes.
This time, the workers, members of the powerful Teamsters local, entered on the sixth day of their strike on Friday, leading to negotiations on a three-year contract following pay. With an additional raise of 1 going to wages by the union, the three-year contract is said to increase by 1.60 per hour per year. Market management, a cooperative made up of 29 vendors, faces an offer of 92 cents an hour per year, paid 32 cents.
Controversy raises questions as to when employees are treated at a time when the conflict between those who have been able to work from the epidemic and those who have been able to work from home is broken.
Workers earning થી 15 to માં 22 an hour say they deserve better rearing because they are risking their health to provide food to the city during an outbreak.
Six workers have died and as many as 30,000 have fallen ill since the coronavirus contract, said union vice-president, Teamsester Local 202 and market activist Charles Machadio. Still, seven days a week, the market will be open twenty-four hours a day.
“We all live in an uncertain world. I may be dead tomorrow, you may be too, ”he said. Mr Machhadio said market traders should recognize that workers “will risk their lives, by continuing your business.”
He said raising a raise would be a way to say, “Thank you guys for coming to work, you’re really a hero.”
None of the traders contacted would speak about wage differences, but they did make a joint statement.
It said the co-op had spent millions of dollars on personal protective equipment for workers and relocated workflows and workstations to make the market safer, without letting anyone down.
“Despite all these challenges, we are very proud of our union workers – most of them working and working here in the Bronx and working on a payroll with full health benefits, as the unemployment rate in the Bronx has been 40 per cent. . The statement said.
Although hundreds of workers have lost their jobs, the strike does not appear to have had a significant impact on food supplies, according to some grocery stores supplied by the market.
Union members have set up picket lines outside the sprawling market every day, and on Tuesday police arrested six of them for obstructing traffic.
Many prominent politicians, all Democrats, have stepped forward in this controversy. Representative Richie Torres and mayoral candidate Andrew Yang rallied in front of the market terminal on Monday. And on Wednesday, representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez distributed hand warmers and coffee to the strikers.
“There are a lot of things going on in our economy right now,” he said. “One of the things that lingers down is that the person who helps get food on your table can’t feed their own baby.”
The strike comes as labor groups push the city to provide more protection to workers, especially in the food industry. Last month, the city council approved two union-backed bills that bar major fast-food companies from firing employees without a valid reason and allow them to appeal termination through arbitration.
But at Hunts Point, the cooperative says, the epidemic, which has closed many restaurants permanently, hit their business hard, costing them millions of dollars in revenue.
Traders on the cooperative buy goods from farms and importers and then distribute the products in the city and wide area. The market rotates 300,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables a day – by some estimates 60 percent of all city products – and says it generates about આશ 2.3 billion a year.
Despite the strike, the market will remain open, and workers who break the temporary strike by the co-operatives have been hired to load and unload trucks, prompting an angry onslaught by strikers whenever a truck arrives at the market entrance.
Noah Haley, who runs a branch of the Seatown supermarket chain on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said he gets all his green vegetables from Hunts Point, which weighs 400 pounds five times a week.
“I’m not worried right now,” he added, adding that Hedges Point’s competitor, Chen Hedges, added to the potential hurdles facing various markets, including the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market.
To avoid potential shortages and to get lower prices, other grocery chains, including Gristids, have also turned their attention to other markets next to Hunts Point since the last strike. Large chains like Whole Foods and Merchant J’s are not market dependent for their products.
The strike workers at Hunts Point said that despite the security measures taken by the cooperative, the market is still full of workers working in nearby quarters. The market is “so crowded,” said Francisco Soto, an activist.
About Mac employs about 1,000 employees, including 1,400 union members, in the vast 13-acre product market. Mr. Machhadio said, which creates the Hunts Point Distribution Center with separate meat and fish markets.
“We’re exposing ourselves to getting sick and making our families sick, but we haven’t slowed down a bit,” said Diego Rutisser, 49, who has held various jobs in the products market for 27 years.
Mr. Rutishezer wakes up at 2 a.m. every day and works at 5 a.m., taking two buses and a train from his home in Jamaica, Queens.
“We don’t ask the impossible,” he said.
Charles Platkin, director of the New York City Food Policy Center, said the longer the strike continues, the more likely it is that supplies will become more difficult to supply.
But he said workers deserve some acceptance for keeping the market functioning during a major public health crisis.
“Because it accounts for so much of our food supply, it’s important to recognize the strength of that market and how important the workers ahead of it are,” said Mr. Platkin, “and how important is it for your city to pay attention?” Labor force there. “
