RETAIL WORKERS CELEBRATE MILLION-DOLLAR WAGES VICTORY!!!!

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/viewarticle.cfm?article_id=3507&content_type=1&media_type=3

Will the organizing model that won back wages and overtime for shop employees have staying power? By Matt Schwarzfeld

Frigid weather didn't stop employees of the Soho retail clothing store Yellow Rat Bastard from celebrating the $1.4 million in back wages they just won in a settlement by rallying outside the shop and marching up Broadway last week.

Months of organizing by the Retail Action Project (RAP) finally paid off with an announcement by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo last Monday that Henry Ishay – who owns Yellow Rat Bastard along with other trendy clothing stores in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn – would compensate for paying employees below the state minimum wage, failing to provide overtime, and illegally reducing hours and firing those who cooperated with the attorney general's investigation. In addition to the wage settlement, RAP – which brought workers together and offered training and support – also helped workers acquire layoff protection in three of Ishay’s stores and focus attention on what many workers have described as unhealthy, unsafe working conditions.


Former Ishay employee Satesh Roopnarnie demonstrates last week. Photos by Gilberto Tadday


With this victory achieved for more than a thousand current and former workers, some wonder what's ahead for this group and others like it. Like most of New York City’s retail workers, employees at YRB and Ishay’s other stores are not unionized, and therefore not protected by a collective bargaining agreement. RAP is not a union, but rather a grassroots advocacy organization fighting alongside workers to protect their rights.

“With retail jobs, the pay is so low that workers often quit and go on to the next store rather than try to take on all these problems,” said RAP organizer Carrie Gleason. “Our goal is to make it easier for these workers to deal with problems, because they may encounter them all over again at the next store they go to.”

“I think this shows how incredibly hard it is for many workers to unionize, but how great the need is,” Gleason said. She points to other worker advocacy groups like Make the Road by Walking and Despierta Bushwick as models for how to make improvements for non-unionized, immigrant workers who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Such groups "give workers the back-up they need on the job regardless of their collective bargaining status. At the same time, workers build networks and get experience in how to deal with problems collectively. It’s a stepping stone to unionizing.”

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, in fact, helped create RAP, along with the neighborhood advocacy group Good Old Lower East Side. Profiles on MySpace and Facebook – which were actually suggested by some of the workers, a youthful group overall – gave the effort a boost too, she noted.

FULL story at link.