The day before Thanksgiving, and more than six months after they went on strike, it finally looked as if the workers at V&V Supremo Foods Inc. would all be heading back to their jobs. About a quarter of them–some 30 drivers and warehouse employees–now had a contract in hand, and V&V, a Pilsen-based manufacturer of Mexican cheeses and sausage, had announced that it would no longer oppose union representation for any of its workers. There were promises to quickly negotiate a first contract for the remaining 88 production employees.
“The company closed the doors on us,” says Mario Pallares, a production worker who’s been at V&V for nine years and has been representing employees at the negotiating table. Pallares says V&V employees voted to unionize and later strike “because of the injustices being committed against us.” V&V workers were obliged to work shifts of up to 16 hours, he says, with managers demanding a frenzied work pace. The company paid overtime, says Pallares, but overtime was mandatory. “We were responsible for a certain output, and we had to keep working until we met that goal. They gave us our breaks during the first eight hours, but after that they wanted us to work without stopping. They assigned someone to check on how many times we went to the bathroom and how long we spent there. If you complained about something the response was ‘Well, there’s the door.’” Pallares, a father of three who lives across the street from V&V’s nondescript factory on 21st Street, says there were weeks in which he’d see his children only on Sundays.
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Local 703 has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board that argues the lockout is unlawful for a number of reasons, among them the fact that it’s limited to the strikers. “We view that as blatant discrimination against people who exercised the protected federal right to strike,” says Cervone. He seeks an injunction that would force V&V to let the strikers return to work.
But Local 703 has by no means won the fight at V&V. The picket line has gotten steadily thinner over the months, as strikers–who have received no strike pay–looked for other work, many at day-labor agencies. “I hate to put it in such unbelievable terms,” says Stiede, “but we have done a very good job making sure these guys at least eat once a day.”
