Vol. 75/No. 27      July 25, 2011

About 25 building maintenance workers walked off the job July 7 after Dayton Park management demanded a four-year wage freeze. The union had already agreed to a reduction in staff by three full-time employees. Having been without a contract since April 2010, workers’ family health insurance was recently cut off.

Strikers pointed out that union members making deliveries to the apartment complex have refused to cross the picket line in solidarity. “Everybody is sticking together in this fight,” said Ceballos. He pointed to a table where workers who live in the housing complex and elsewhere in the neighborhood regularly bring food and water to the strikers. Some tenants started a petition to remove Jennifer Grady as chair of Dayton Park’s Board of Directors.

“Management is trying to turn tenants against us by saying that rents are going up because of the workers, but people know rents are going up across the city and we’re not the ones raising them,” one of the strikers said.

Union members at Dayton Park are reaching out for support. A solidarity rally is scheduled for July 14 at 5:00 p.m. in front of the buildings. “Far Rockaway we need your help!” reads the headline of the flyer promoting the rally, appealing to the surrounding community.

Workers from Flatbush Gardens apartment complex in Brooklyn—members of 32BJ who have been locked out for opposing company concessions—have already been by the picket line and are planning to come out for the rally.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home