Retail cleaners 4th day of Hunger strike. Joined by State Senator, clergy, rabbi and other leaders

[annm4peace]

Run time: 02:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Geye6UMIusM   Posted on YouTube: May 25, 2011 By YouTube Member: Centrodetrabajadores Views on YouTube: 135   Posted on DU: May 29, 2011 By DU Member: annm4peace Views on DU: 253

 
They have tried to bring light to the abuse in the retail cleaning through press conferences, marches, rallies, petitions.



The community, city council, State Senator, and religious leaders stand with the retail workers



http://ctul.net/hunger-strike/

Cub Foods prides itself on charitable giving for hunger relief and other community issues. In fact, in 2010 the parent company of Cub Foods donated approximately $90 million to the community, the equivalent of $1.73 million a week. We, the workers who clean Cub Foods’ stores, are often the very people who have to seek relief from local food shelves. If Cub Foods were to pay only one week of community donations to ensure that we are treated fairly as we clean their stores, we could afford to provide food for our own families and we would not have to beg for handouts.

For over a year, retail cleaning workers with the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) have tried to contact representatives of Cub Foods to discuss ways to end the human rights violations that are reported in the cleaning of their stores. The response? A worker leaders was fired, and Cub Foods trespassed organizers from stepping on their property.



Here is some more info:

Abraham Leon, retail cleaning worker: “Many years ago at the stores I clean, some workers made up to $11 or $12 an hour. Now the workforce has been reduced, our workload has nearly doubled and many cleaning workers are barely making minimum wage. But it’s not just us, this problem is happening across the industry, to the point where we’ve seen a slavery ring in retail cleaning uncovered in Philadelphia. If we don’t do something to ensure fair wages and working conditions now, then we are heading a hundred miles an hour down a very slippery slope.”

Here are just a few of the serious violations of human rights in retail cleaning:

1. In July 2010 a slavery ring was uncovered in retail cleaning in the Northeast, involving workers who cleaned at Target, Kmart, Wal-Mart, Safeway and other locations.


Paquette Maintenance. Cleaned Lunds Food Holdings, Goodwill, Menards, Marshall’s, and other retail chains. In 2007 the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) carried out an investigation against Paquette Maintenance for failure to pay proper overtime to workers based in Minnesota. The USDOL found 106 violations totaling over $25,000 in unpaid wages. According to the USDOL investigator, it appeared that the company deliberately delayed responding to the investigation to be able to declare bankruptcy and not pay workers

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1. Solidarity