Brooklyn, NY, Julio 2007.

Trabajan 115 horas a la semana, y ganan menos de $4 dólares la hora. En Nueva York, donde el salario mínimo es de $7.15 y el alquiler mensual de un estudio puede costar $900 dólares o más, los empleados de HWH Trading Company trabajan en condiciones que están más cerca de a esclavitud que de cualquier otra cosa. Tres empleados latinos decidieron afiliarse al sindicato de Trabajadores Industriales del Mundo (IWW) para exigir condiciones justas. Su empleador niega ser su empleador pero afirma que ganan $2000 dólares por semana. Vea el   siguiente video y decida dónde esta la verdad.

Brooklyn, NY, July 2007.  

They work 115 hours a week, earning under $4 dollars an hour. In New York City, where minimum wage is $7.15 and a studio apartment may cost $900 a month or more, workers at HWH Trading Company work in conditions that are closer to slavery than anything else. Three Latino employees decided to unionize and join the Industrial Workers of the World in order to demand fair conditions. Their employer denies being their employer but asserts that they make $2000 per week.  Please watch the following video and decide for yourself where the truth lies.

Elizabeth, NJ. On May 1st, a New York delegation of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), commonly known as the “Wobblies”, traveled to Elizabeth, NJ to co-sponsor the opening of the Gilberto Soto Workers Center. The Wobblies came together with a group of owner-operator truck drivers, who, by law, are regarded as small businessmen and not allowed to unionize. The Center was created to provide a space for the truckers to organize and address their needs. It is named after Teamster organizer Gilberto Soto from El Salvador, who was assassinated during a visit home in 2004.

IWW organizer Billy Randall likened the contractual situation of the owner-operators to the sharecropping system that existed in the south: “The drivers are identified legally as independent owner-operators. This prevents them, as ‘independent businessmen’, from joining a union and negotiating rate changes and their benefits. We intend to challenge that.”