The 105 members of the local walked out May 29 to protest stalling by the company on recognizing the union and signing a contract. Since April 11, V&V Supremo has not responded to a single offer by the union.

Over the past nine months the union has consolidated its support among these workers. Truck drivers, helpers, and workers in customer service voted 21 to 7 for the union last October. Seven months later the cheese makers, laborers, pasteurizers, and packers in the firm voted 46 to 31 for union representation. On June 22 the National Labor Relations Board declared the elections valid against the company's legal challenge.

"For 35 years this company has gotten rich off immigrant labor, no respect, no benefits," said Rodea, who works in the outlet store catering to the public and local small businesses. Many of the strikers are immigrant workers from Mexico. The company's share of the market for the high quality Mexican-style cheese and chorizo they produce has steadily grown, he said.

Jesús Guzmán, a 22-year-old truck driver receives $8.25 an hour in wages. "Wage increases have been tied to supervisor evaluations," he explained. "In my last review, I was praised highly but then told I only deserve a 45-cent raise. You can't pay the rent with praises. Union scale for truck drivers here is $17–22 an hour."

As the most prominent spokesperson of the strike, Guzmán has been in the Cook County Circuit Court almost daily, responding to company attempts to criminalize or intimidate picketers or to limit their numbers.

The company's distribution center and outlet is now surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire and floodlights. Private security officers carrying radios and video cameras are posted on the roof and at each gate. They escort the office workers now working in production and the strikebreakers hired from temporary agencies into the plant. They have been unable to provoke a single incident, however, or to find grounds for one arrest.

At a June 22 solidarity rally held in front of the company's distribution center, Marcelo Guerrero, a warehouse helper for one year, outlined the workers' demands for higher wages and affordable health insurance.  
 
Health care plan out of reach
Around 200 people representing a range of unions in the city attended the action. The truck that served as the speakers' platform was flanked by two giant inflatable rats.

Wages are too low, said Guerrero, who is 25. He explained that the workers have gone without a raise for three years, and the health-care plan the company provides is out of reach for most single workers, while family coverage is impossible to afford.

Important as these issues are, he added, "money and health care is not enough. We also demand to be treated with dignity and fairness."

Victorino González, 32, started as a laborer at $5.15 an hour six years ago. He now makes $7.95 as an assistant operator. The work requires skill and strength, he told the Militant, explaining that it involves working the cheese with bare hands at a temperature of 110 degrees until the texture is right. "We should be treated in a way we deserve instead of however they feel like treating us," he said.

Strikers raised other problems. They mentioned the mandatory 14- to 16-hour workdays; the bosses' incompetence, covered by yelling and demands to speed up; the lack of safety equipment; the inadequate 401 (k) retirement fund; the pay differentials based on favoritism; and the many firings of workers who had spoken out as individuals against abusive treatment.

The workers have reached out for support at meetings and rallies for immigrant rights and labor solidarity, and have posted strike fliers in city buses and elsewhere. Grocery store workers, Teamster members, and others have donated food, while local Hispanic politicians and religious leaders have visited the picket line.

"The bosses are not going to come out and say, 'Here it is, this is what's yours.' We have to fight for it," said Guzmán the day after the rally. That action "encouraged us, and brought more weight to bear on the bosses to join a dialogue," he emphasized.

Guerrero added, "Once you made that decision to go after what is yours, you move forward, not back. Now we must stick together in order to win and so the boss cannot victimize anyone. We must keep in mind that this is the only way those that come after us can have benefits we haven't had."

Twenty strikers from Local 703 joined a June 23 march demanding that workers without papers be eligible for drivers licenses and for access to higher education. The march, which proceeded from Pietrowski Park in the city's Southwest side to the Social Security Administration building, was part of an AFL-CIO national week of actions on the issue of immigrant rights.

Around 800 people took part. Among them were contingents from union organizations, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, along with community groups, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Speakers included Dan Turner, president of the AFL-CIO in Chicago; Democratic Party congressman Luis Gutiérrez; Victor Valdez from SEIU Local 150, on strike to win a contract at a golf course; and a janitor originally from Poland, who stressed the need for equality for workers of all nationalities to be able to live in this country.  
 
 
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