50 Tea Workers Need Your Help to Gain a Fair Deal (on stirke since Nov. 2)

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/11/tea-workers-need-your-help-to-gain-a-fair-deal/

For four months, workers at Redco Foods in Little Falls, N.Y., have stood in the cold, braving frost, ice storms and blizzards to defend their standard of living. Forty-seven members of Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) walked out at Redco’s plant in Little Falls, N.Y., on Nov. 2, seeking a fair contract. Their previous pact expired July 1.

Like many other employers seeking to raise profits on the backs of workers, Redco’s parent, German-based Teekanne GmbH, is demanding givebacks—including a switch from a defined-benefit pension plan with a guaranteed payment each month to a 401(k), a reduction in vacation days and a requirement that new employees pay 25 percent of medical premiums.

Now the Redco workers need your help. Click here to send a letter to the CEO of Redco supporting the strikers and urging him to return to the bargaining table. Click here to learn more about the strike.

Rather than negotiate with the workers, Teekane has imported technicians from Germany and is using management employees to keep the machines running.

In January, BCTGM President Frank Hurt wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, saying Teekanne is violating U.S. immigration laws by bringing in German mechanics to keep the Little Falls plant running during the strike. He called for an “expedited investigation” into the charges.

We have reliable information that after Thanksgiving, for several weeks, two German nationals were brought into the country to service machines normally maintained by our members. We believe that at this moment another German national is present in the Little Falls facility.

Hurt told Chertoff the union’s understanding of the U.S. visa program with Germany does not allow foreign workers to come to this country to perform work normally done by striking workers.

Redco produces and distributes Salada and Red Rose tea, as well as the Junket brand dessert mixes. Redco is the hot tea licensee for Snapple and distributes both Pompadour and Garden of the Andes tea.

Several links in story, click the link.