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Vol. 74/No. 45      November 29, 2010

 
On the Picket Line
 
Tomato pickers in Florida
win wage increase

Farm workers in Florida’s tomato industry have won a penny-per-pound raise as part of a pact between the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.

The agreement provides workers more rights and better health and safety conditions on the job, according to the coalition.

The group has fought since the 1990s to compel the big growers to improve wages and working conditions. Fast food companies such as McDonald’s and Burger King had earlier agreed to a pay raise, but up until now the Florida growers continued to hold out.

Florida tomatoes supply 90 percent of the U.S. winter crop.

—Cindy Jaquith

D.C. nurses call one-day strike
over contract, understaffing

Nurses at Washington Hospital Center, the largest private hospital in the Washington, D.C., area, have voted by 90 percent to hold a one-day strike the day before Thanksgiving.

National Nurses United represents the 1,600 nurses at the 926-bed facility. The union said in a statement it was taking the action to force negotiations for a new contract. The hospital faces chronic nurse understaffing, according to the union.

A veteran nurse, who did not want to be identified for fear of hospital retaliation, told the Washington Post labor and delivery is supposed to have two nurses attending every birth, but “we do it when we can—it just depends.” In the pulmonary step-down unit, one nurse is responsible for four patients on respirators, double the number from a decade ago, said nurse Blondina Mays.

In October the hospital imposed wage cuts, eliminating the shift differential for those who work evenings, nights, or weekends.

National Nurses United has also been involved in recent one-day strikes in Minneapolis and Philadelphia.

—Angel Lariscy

Union crew strikes
NBC reality TV show

Some 50 members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees walked off the job of the NBC reality show “The Biggest Loser” in early November after the company failed to recognize the union in spite of all crew members signing union cards.

After the company hired replacement workers, more than 100 crew members and supporters picketed November 15 in Calabasas, California, where the show is filmed. The driver of the catering truck that provides food for the crew and the two trainers who work on the show refused to cross the picket line.

—Angel Lariscy
 
 
Related articles:
Solidarity march supports locked-out unionists in Iowa  
 
 
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