Workers Cleaning Target Stores Threaten to Strike
Source: The Nation
Josh Eidelson
Non-union janitors who clean Target stores in Minnesota say they'll go on strike unless their employers agree by noon on Sunday to meet and discuss alleged crimes.
The workers are employed by three janitorial contractors–Prestige Maintenance USA, Diversified Maintenance Systems, and Carlson Building Maintenance–and work inside Target facilities in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The strike threat follows a series of OSHA charges alleging that employees of those companies were denied proper safety training and locked inside of Target stores, and National Labor Relations Board charges alleging that they were retaliated against for organizing. The charges and the strike threat were spearheaded by the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), a Twin Cities labor group which, as The Nation reported, has been organizing retail cleaning workers for two years.
“I guess I’d say I’m not scared,” Diversified employee and CTUL activist Alejandro Quirino told The Nation in Spanish. “Because I’m fed up and sick and tired of how they’ve treated us, and how our demands have been ignored. And that’s why I’m going to go on strike. If I get fired, I know I was fighting for what’s right, and putting in what I could to fight for what’s fair.”
CTUL is demanding that contractors meet to discuss the alleged safety and labor law violations, which it says include the firing of two workers less than a week after one of them had appeared in a campaign video. “Management told one of my co-workers that if a worker tries to strike or organize with their co-workers, they’ll be fired,” said Quirino.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/173051/workers-cleaning-target-stores-threaten-strike#
Josh Eidelson
= new reply since forum marked as read
Love your Grain Belt icon, btw.
Grain Belt is what I drink by choice.
It also bubbles when lit. Union made long ago.
