Andrew Friedman

Union-Community Alliance Wins Big

Most of the talk about organizing drives at retail stores focuses on the big box mega stores like Wal-Mart and BJ's. Nonetheless, most retail workers in New York City work at smaller stores. Whether it's at a shoe store on Fordam Road in the Bronx, at a discount clothing store on Steinway in Queens, or at an electronics store on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, these workers are usually struggling to make ends meet. Many workers don't even earn the minimum wage. In Bushwick, Make the Road by Walking teamed up with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) to do something about it.

In an innovative collaboration aimed at drastically improving wages, benefits and working conditions for retail workers along Bushwick's Knickerbocker Avenue, Make the Road by Walking launched a community organizing campaign that reached out to thousands of neighborhood consumers and got them to commit to stop buying from stores that exploit or mistreat their workers. Make the Road also reached out to the workers and encouraged them to organize a union that would give them lasting power in the workplace. The RWDSU was eager to experiment with community-labor partnerships, and eager to organize the workers in these retail shops. They engaged and developed strong leaders among the workers.

This Wednesday, the workers that lead the organizing drive, Make the Road by Walking and the RWDSU will announce that this partnership has won big pay raises, paid health care benefits, paid vacation and sick days and a union contract for close to 100 workers at 10 stores. (See Sunday's New York Times, In Modern Rarity, Workers Form Union at Small Chain)

This victory demonstrates that workers who are willing to stand up, and stand together, can win real improvements in their lives. It is a promising model of how community-labor collaboration can help to organize low-wage, immigrant workers around New York City.

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Posted at 8:18 AM, Feb 06, 2006 in Labor
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