United, We’ll Win at FreshDirect!
With 1,200 workers, FreshDirect is the largest nonunion grocery warehouse in New York City. Pay starts at $8.50 an hour and tops out at $11.50 an hour. Shifts can last 16 hours in a facility refrigerated to 38 degrees.
FreshDirect workers want the wages, benefits and respect that come with a union contract. In 2008, FreshDirect workers tried to join Local 805. But the company used an immigration raid to terrorize workers right before a union vote.
“We promised workers we’d be back,” said Local 805 President Sandy Pope. “Well, we’re back and this time we’re not coming alone.”
Political leaders, immigrants’ rights groups and community organizations are joining Local 805 in a campaign to make FreshDirect respect workers legal right to join the union without illegal threats or intimidation.
Turning Up the Heat
The majority of members of the New York City Council have signed on to a letter demanding that FreshDirect agree to an expedited union election and that management stay neutral in the vote.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, the number two ranking political leader in New York after Mayor Bloomberg, has publicly endorsed the campaign.
De Blasio wrote an editorial in the Daily News saying that companies like FreshDirect shouldn’t get money from the city unless they respect workers’ rights and pay a living wage. FreshDirect is getting $15 million in tax subsidies from the city as part of a multi-year deal.
FreshDirect’s depends on public money and its public image to turn a profit.
That’s why Local 805 is teaming up with the public to turn up the heat on FreshDirect.
