[Marxism] Deliverymen revolt

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Washington Post
Saturday, August 25, 2007; A01
30 Immigrants On Bikes Deliver A Labor Revolt
N.Y. Workers Gain Allies in Protest of Wages, Conditions

By Anthony Faiola

NEW YORK -- The deliverymen of Saigon Grill labored for years at the 
bottom of Manhattan's food chain. Biking swiftly down the avenues in 
biting cold and searing heat, they schlepped up high-rises and walk-ups 
with bags of steaming noodles and shrimp fried rice.

Then they surprised their bosses -- and others in this seen-it-all town 
-- by serving up something unexpected: a revolt.

The 30 men -- all immigrants, including undocumented workers frustrated 
with the poor conditions and low wages that are often a fact of life in 
America's underground economy -- banded together in an effort to 
unionize. They demanded an end to what they say were salaries less than 
half the minimum wage, and to penalties that included $20 fines for late 
deliveries and $50 for shutting the restaurant's glass doors with a bang.

Saigon Grill's owner fired them. It might have ended there, but as the 
immigrant labor movement gains steam in a number of major U.S. cities, 
the men opted to fight back. With the help of local groups aiming to 
organize documented and undocumented immigrants in New York, the men 
filed a lawsuit against the owner. Then, in March, they began daily 
picket lines at the restaurant's two Manhattan locations.

So far, hundreds of deliverymen, waiters, cooks and busboys from across 
New York have joined their picket lines in shows of solidarity. Angry 
deliverymen have slapped at least five other restaurants here with 
similar lawsuits. Immigrants laboring in other types of restaurant jobs 
have filed several more, targeting small takeout operations and upscale 
establishments such as Devi, the critically acclaimed Manhattan eatery.

"We have been going under the assumption that because we have no papers, 
we were powerless -- but we were wrong," Ke, a 35-year-old Chinese 
immigrant and former Saigon Grill deliveryman, said through an 
interpreter during a protest last week at the restaurant's fashionable 
Union Square branch. As with others here, Ke requested that his surname 
be withheld because he is undocumented. "We have discovered that we have 
the power to act."

The New York deliverymen's revolt, observers say, is happening as a 
number of immigrants are mobilizing into an increasingly organized labor 
movement with the help of unions and a fast-growing assortment of local 
activist groups.

Legal actions and demonstrations on behalf of undocumented immigrants by 
groups such as Justice for Janitors have been going on for years. But in 
the wake of the grass-roots mobilizations surrounding the immigration 
reform debate in Washington, experts have noted an increase in lawsuits, 
picket lines and work stoppages by immigrants who had long shied away 
from more visible forms of protest.

Immigrants have also emerged as the cavalry in the United States' 
flagging labor movement, which is embracing a group of people long 
assailed by union members for driving down wages. The percentage of the 
American workforce represented by unions has fallen to 13.1 percent, 
down from 16.2 percent a decade ago.

But the number of immigrants, documented and undocumented, represented 
by unions surged to 2 million last year, up from 1.6 million in 1996, 
according to a study by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute 
that is scheduled for release next week. By comparison, the number of 
union-represented U.S.-born citizens dropped to 14.8 million last year, 
down from 16.5 million in 1996, the study said.

The majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States, observers 
say, remain too fearful to participate in such public actions. But a 
growing assertiveness in some pockets of the country's illegal immigrant 
community of 12 million people is beginning to answer at least one of 
the hot questions in the immigration debate: What would happen if 
exploited undocumented workers decided one day that enough is enough?

If New York -- a city whose key service and construction sectors are 
highly dependent on cheap immigrant labor -- is any example, it will 
mean higher costs for businesses and their customers. Fearing they could 
be the next target, dozens of restaurateurs in Manhattan have boosted 
wages for deliverymen, according to union officials, lawyers and workers.

Saigon Grill itself, meanwhile, has suspended food delivery -- which 
reportedly accounted for as much as 25 percent of the chain's revenue. A 
management official at the company who asked not to be named said it has 
been forced to raise prices to cover some of those losses.

"It sort of makes you sit up and take notice, doesn't it?" said Kenneth 
Kimerling, legal director of the Asian American Legal Defense and 
Education Fund (AALDEF).

The challenges facing the immigrant labor movement remain formidable. 
Tougher immigration enforcement and increased raids, observers say, have 
had a chilling effect on organization efforts in some parts of the country.

But activists say that in big urban areas such as New York and Los 
Angeles -- where local policies prohibit city officials from asking 
about immigration status in labor or other disputes -- immigrant groups 
have become strikingly bolder in demanding rights.

Observers say that is a direct result of increased efforts to organize 
them. In May, for instance, dozens of unions in Los Angeles dispatched 
liaisons to help organize the largely Hispanic, immigrant truck drivers 
serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The result was an 
organized work stoppage in which hundreds of immigrant workers demanding 
better pay joined in a caravan protest that left port officials 
scurrying to find replacements, said Maria Elena Durazo, board member of 
the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Similar organizational efforts, she said, are underway at ports in Miami 
and New Jersey. In New York, unions and activist groups are also moving 
to organize immigrant construction, supermarket and nail salon workers. 
Over the past decade, the number of "worker centers" -- or associations 
for immigrant day laborers that strive to set standardized wages -- has 
jumped from a few dozen to more than 200 nationwide, according to the 
National Employment Law Project.

The courts are often on their side. Though a noted 2002 U.S. Supreme 
Court ruling made it more difficult for undocumented immigrants to seek 
damages for being unlawfully fired, it did not preclude them from going 
after back wages -- the primary goal of the majority of immigrant labor 
lawsuits. Over the past three years, AALDEF -- one of the largest 
immigrant activist groups in New York -- has won about $4 million in 
claims for 87 clients.

"It's the American story: immigrants trying to assert their rights," 
said John Wilhelm, co-president of Unite Here, an immigrant-based labor 
group of 450,000 that bills itself as the fastest-growing union in North 
America. "Italian and Irish Americans did it 100 years ago; now new 
groups of immigrants are trying to do the same."

For the deliverymen at Saigon Grill -- mostly Chinese immigrants -- the 
move to organize came after word spread around town of a similar case 
last year at another Manhattan restaurant, Our Place Cuisines of China. 
After a deliveryman there was allegedly fired for talking back to his 
boss, he organized workers at the restaurant with the help of the 
Chinese Staff and Workers Association (CSWA) and the 318 Restaurant 
Workers Union, both labor groups that have succeeded in upping wages for 
many Asian immigrants in New York's Chinatown.

"We began to sense that maybe we were not helpless, that maybe even 
people like us could fight for our rights," said Ke, an immigrant from 
Fujian province who illegally arrived in the United States in 1995.

After contacting CSWA and the 318 union in February, Ke said that he 
helped lead a secret movement to unionize Saigon Grill's deliverymen and 
demand fair wages. When the restaurant's owner, Simon Nget, an ethnic 
Chinese Cambodian who had fled the Khmer Rouge and came to New York in 
the 1980s, discovered their plan, the deliverymen say he offered to 
increase wages from $1.60 to $4 an hour. But only if they dropped their 
unionization bid. When they refused, they said, he fired them.

Nget did not return phone calls requesting comment. In a personal letter 
to his customers, he alleged, however, that the men were trying to 
"extort" him and called their demonstrations "outrageous."

Given the fairly high success rate of immigrant labor suits, employers 
-- especially restaurants -- frequently settle out of court to avoid 
unwanted publicity. For now, the deliverymen of Saigon Grill insist they 
will keep up their protest for as long as it takes.

"We feel strong now," Ke said. "And that feels good."

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