www.newsandletters.org
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2004Protest Fred’s at zooMemphis, Tenn.--In November the National Labor Relations Board in Washington certified the union election of May 2002, where we voted in UNITE at Fred’s. Now Fred’s has to recognize us. Even though the union has been certified, the company is still up to some of its tricks, threatening people about production, moving people around, cutting their pay. When we started organizing, Mike Hayes, the CEO, had a meeting with the workers and told us the company was broke. He pretended he was crying, covered his face, and ran out of the room. That was to make people think that if you voted the union in the company would shut down. If I had a tape of that, I would’ve played it when he started bragging of record profits. One of the executives at Fred’s is on the Memphis Zoo board, so we had a protest at a $200-a-ticket fundraiser called the Zoo Rendezvous, showing off pandas recently brought from China. We stood out front protesting while people were going in. A couple of people in panda suits held signs that said, You’re taking food out of Fred’s workers’ mouths. In the first contract, we want set hours, with voluntary overtime. Order people in at 4:30 don’t know what time they’re getting off. You just have to finish. A lot of people had only been getting three or four hours a day. All of a sudden, it’s 12-14 hours a day. You can’t go home. You know your child is coming home from school looking for you, because you’ve been there all these weeks. They tell you to find somebody else to take care of your child. The breaks should be set too. Once, people came in at 5:00 a.m. and didn’t get a break until 11:30. When it’s hot, or when it’s cold, they just work people like horses. When people are passing out, they just want to give you a popsicle. A lot of warehouses are like Fred’s. I was hoping that once things get settled here at Fred’s, it’ll make the other companies wake up and realize that they’ll be made to do their people better. --Black woman worker |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
