Labor's Gotta Play Hardball to Win!


Chicago Plant Occupation Electrifies Labor
(December 2008). 
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May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down
U.S. West Coast Ports

(May 2008)

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July 2009   

Internationalist Group Statement

At Stella D’oro, the Struggle Continues
Mobilize NYC Labor to Stop the Plant Closing – No Concessions!


Stella D’oro workers return July 7 after 325 days on strike. Workers hung tough and beat back bosses’
attack, but now they face a new assault.
(Photo: Librado Romero/New York Times)

On July 7, after 325 days on strike, workers at the Stella D’oro bakery in the Bronx went back to work under the contract that the company management had ripped up. The scabs who had replaced them were gone. Yet while workers were glad to be back on the job, the owners viciously announced they would shut the plant for good. With their steadfastness, the strikers beat back one attack. Now they face a new assault that is just as serious. For Stella D’oro workers and all New York labor, la lucha continúa – the struggle continues!

For working people throughout the area, the battle of 135 mainly immigrant workers has become a symbol of struggle for the most basic rights of labor. Faced with outrageous takeaway demands from the private equity firm (Brynwood Partners) that bought the plant in 2006, the workers refused to buckle under. Instead, they went on strike – and as the strike continued for eleven hard months, not a single one crossed the picket line. The strikers’ solidarity and determination inspired labor, student and community activists, and drew considerable media attention. At the same time, the strike was a challenge to NYC labor to move from words of solidarity to militant mass action, to decisively win this fight.

On June 30, an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of a complaint against the company brought by the strikers’ union, Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers. Yet the vindictive company immediately appealed the ruling, and filed a formal announcement under the federal WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) Act that it will close the plant down in October. The whole system is stacked against the working class.

It is crucial to the future of workers in New York that labor’s power  be unleashed to stop Brynwood’s plan to shut down the Stella D’oro plant. The entire workers movement, immigrant rights and community groups must mobilize and prepare for whatever it takes to win this fight. This will require hard and determined struggle.

As Juan Gonzalez noted in his Daily News (8 July) column, “in a town that prides itself as the heart of organized labor, the other unions were AWOL” during the strike. Staking everything on the bosses’ legal system and the Democratic Party, labor bureaucrats let the Stella strike twist in the wind. The “only consistent support” on the picket lines, Gonzalez noted, came from teachers, City University (CUNY) faculty and staff, hospital workers, and some others. The Central Labor Council turned a deaf ear to repeated appeals to mobilize real backing. Now more than ever, the stakes are too high to allow a play-by-the-bosses’-rules, wait-and-see response.

IG and Class Struggle Education Workers at May 30 Stella D’oro strike support march. (Photo: Next Left Notes)

Appealing to “Mobilize New York Unions’ Power to Win the Stella D’oro Strike!” (30 May), Internationalist Group supporters were able to make some impact in helping organize efforts to get the scab products off the shelves and track down the supplies flowing into the plant – some from unionized companies. UFCW-represented supermarket workers in particular, as well as some Teamster activists, expressed eagerness to help the strikers. Brynwood got rid of Stella’s Teamster drivers in 2006 – paving the way for its assault on the bakers and packers two years later. Yet due to the narrow business-union outlook typical of the labor tops, Local 50 had crossed the drivers’ lines during the 2003 Teamster strike at the plant. As Stella workers have seen, picket lines mean don’t cross.

In a difficult struggle, it is crucial to have clarity about who are your friends and who are your enemies. Illusions in the capitalist state are among the key obstacles that must be overcome. One striker said realistically: “We got out of one hole, but we got in a bigger one now. We didn’t win anything yet.” In contrast, some leftists rushed to proclaim the judge’s ruling a flat-out “victory.” Thus Workers World (8 July) hailed the “major victory” won through the NLRB. Progressive Labor Party (whose supporters have, to their credit, been very active in strike-support activities) put out a leaflet proclaiming “Stella D’oro workers win the battle – but the war against capitalism continues!” But while the war against capitalism certainly continues, the battle of Stella D’oro workers is far from won.

As Juan Gonzalez reported, Brynwood first told the union: “Because we’re a hedge fund, our investors expect a higher rate of return, and your members should expect a wage cut.” Now the arrogant bosses use their “right” as private-property owners to decree the plant’s closing, while workers who have toiled there for decades are supposed to have no say in the matter and be dumped into the street. Workers aren’t buying it. After returning to the plant (where the bosses installed 20 new cameras to spy on them), many vowed to resist Brynwood’s vengeful retaliation, to “find ways to beat them” and “keep the plant open.” This means “no messing around,” another said.

A number of leftists are now looking to the White House, or even billionaire NYC mayor Bloomberg to aid the workers. An International Socialist Organization spokeswoman talked of “the importance of pressuring politicians.” We say: workers must rely on their own strength. “Fire the boss!” became the slogan of workers in Latin America taking over factories to stop mass layoffs. Last December, Republic Windows and Doors workers in Chicago electrified labor with their bold sit-down strike – and workers in Britain, Ireland, Canada and elsewhere have recently done the same.

In New York City, working and poor people, immigrants, oppressed communities, students and even members of the hard-pressed middle class are angry at Wall Street rip-off artists – and private equity buyout firms like Brynwood. As the economy spirals downwards, Democrat Obama and Congress “bail out” billionaires with trillions in taxpayer dollars. In order to defeat the bosses, militant action to save Stella D’oro workers’ jobs, such as a plant occupation, could win wide support. But this would require systematic, careful preparation, and the active mobilization of hundreds and thousands of workers in the streets.

The Stella D’oro workers are justly proud of the solidarity and determination they’ve shown in their struggle. Their steadfastness set an inspiring example for the rest of labor. We need to win this one! It’s high time for labor to step up and make it happen: No plant closing! No concessions! Victory to the Stella D’oro workers! 


To contact the League for the Fourth International or its sections, send an e-mail to: internationalistgroup@msn.com 

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