FW: Tortilla factory workers in Chicago need our support

[Guest guest]

Hello friends,

 

Please go to their website and sign your support, they have made it very

easy. I hope our vegan Mexican vendor friend is reading, I know he goes

through a lot of tortillas!

 

Janice

 

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Eric Lee <ericlee

28 Oct 2002 15:17:03 +0000

" labourstart " <labourstart

Tortilla factory workers in Chicago need our support

 

Normally, you don't get a mass mailing from us at the beginning of the

week, but something has come up.

 

We've received an appeal from the workers at the Azteca Foods tortilla

factory in Chicago.

 

For many years, those workers were " represented " by a corrupt company

union. But earlier this year, they finally got a real, independent

union of their own, and entered in contract negotiations with their

employer.

 

Those negotiations have dragged on -- and on -- and on.

 

Most of these workers are Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. They

suffer from a very heavy workload, load pay, workplace injuries, verbal

abuse from their supervisors, and so on.

 

Azteca, which has sales of over $30 million a year, is asking the

workers to accept less than what they're getting now, and want to

increase their health care charges by 700%. The company has tried to

intimidate the union with threats, interrogation and surveillance.

 

A few weeks ago, the workers began an unfair labor practices strike.

Their union, the UE (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of

America), is calling for a boycott of Azteca tortillas and chips (which

are sold only in the US).

 

They asked us to help with the international campaign to focus global

attention on this company. It is extremely urgent that we mobilize

trade unionists around the world to send emails of protest to the

millionaire owner of Azteca Foods, Arthur Velasquez.

 

Please go to this page to send your protest today:

 

http://www.labourstart.org/actnow/20021028.shtml

 

And please forward this email to others -- to colleagues, to fellow

trade unionists, to progressive mailing lists.

 

Let's spread the word -- and show the Azteca Foods workers who are today

walking the picket line that they are not alone.

 

Thanks.

 

Eric Lee