Submitted on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 2:44pm
For Immediate Release: Brandworkers International
Contact: press (at) brandworkers.org - April 7, 2008
Giorgione Drops Wild Edibles Amid Escalating Labor Dispute
Immigrant Workers Seeking to Improve Large Seafood Company Score Another Victory
New York, NY- Employees at Wild Edibles have chalked up a gain in their effort to win unlawfully withheld overtime pay and a voice at work with the decision of highly-regarded Italian restaurants, Giorgione and Giorgione 508, to refrain from purchasing Wild Edibles seafood until workers' grievances are fairly resolved. Giorgione joins leading New York restaurants including Pastis, Union Square Cafe, La Goulue, Mermaid Inn, and Sushi Samba that have previously pulled out of Wild Edibles over concern for the treatment of employees there.
Submitted on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 3:54pm
Wild Edibles Continues to Lose Millions of Dollars Over Mistreatment of Workers
New York, NY- Large seafood wholesaler and retailer, Wild Edibles, is seeing its customer base rapidly erode with Sushi Samba, one of the nation's hottest sushi restaurants, cutting off purchases from the company until an employment dispute with workers is fairly resolved. Sushi Samba Park and Sushi Samba 7 join leading New York restaurants like Pastis, Union Square Cafe, La Goulue, and Mermaid Inn that have previously pulled out of Wild Edibles over concern for the treatment of employees there.
"We are very pleased that Sushi Samba has chosen to support the legal rights of workers at Wild Edibles," said Daniel Gross, the founding director of Brandworkers International, a non-profit workers' rights organization providing legal and advocacy assistance to the employees. "Wild Edibles' remaining customers would do well to consider playing a similarly positive role."
Submitted on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 4:14pm
By Maria Rodriguez Gil - March 16, 2008
From the Anarcho Syndicalist Review:
Although the Industrial Workers of the World pioneered
industrial unionism 100 years ago, it hasn’t seen a significant
organizing drive in the United States for decades—until a recent drive
among short-haul truckers on the West Coast and an ongoing campaign by
the IWW Food and Allied Workers Union, New York Local I.U. 460/640, to
organize food industry workers (the vast majority of them undocumented
immigrants) in New York City.
The two-year-old organizing drive has reached about 500
workers in dozens of food industry companies and has significantly
improved, directly and indirectly, wages and working conditions across
the industry in the New York City area.
Proving wrong those who claim that you can’t build a union
with undocumented workers, the IWW has succeeded where traditional
unions failed, becoming the only union in the country with 90%
undocumented members (more than 70 have joined Local I.U. 460/640).
Submitted on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 11:30am
IWW to picket Handyfat Trading in celebration of jury award for 6 fired workers of $360,000 in back pay!
Workers from Handyfat Trading founded IWW Industrial Union 460 in December 2005. They were instrumental and active in organizing all the other food service shops that have joined IU 460 since then (ten shops). In addition, these workers along with the workers from EZ Supply/Sunrise Plus achieved the first collective bargaining agreements in this segment of the food industry.
In December 2006 and January 2007, all union members from both Handyfat and EZ Supply were fired. After winning orders of reinstatement and back wages at the NLRB, the workers now begin to win the court battles for their stolen backwages.
The IWW will be holding a picket and press conference this Saturday at Handyfat.
Saturday - March 15th, 2008 at 10am
Submitted on Wed, 02/06/2008 - 3:42pm
by Diane Krauthamer - February 3, 2008
Wouldn’t it be a real travesty to spend $50 on a wonderful
lobster dinner at New York City’s highest rated restaurant, only to
find out after your meal that the food was rotten?
Behind the scenes at New York City’s #1 rated restaurant
Of course, fine dining establishments must comply with health and
safety standards in their kitchens. Of course, establishments ranked as
NYC’s most popular wouldn’t dare serve rotten seafood. But there may
not be any rotten seafood at all—this is only on the surface. Something
happens well before the seafood even reaches the kitchen and it will
make you even sicker.