Unions Stand With Exploited Immigrant Demolition Workers in NYC
A conversation with Chaz Rynkiewicz, vice president of Laborers Local 79.
Maximillian Alvarez
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With Laborers Local 79 leading the charge, union demolition workers, construction workers, carpenters, bricklayers, and more have rallied multiple times in the past month outside the Chelsea Terminal Warehouse in New York City to protest the mishandling of workers’ pensions and the exploitation, union busting, wage theft, and hazardous conditions workers have experienced at the job site. As Dean Moses writes in The Villager, “Many of the Laborers are immigrant demolition workers, also called los demolicionsitas, and construction workers who say that they have been deprived of healthcare throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to face intimidation and threats for trying to unionize Terminal Warehouse. Protesters named several culprits — three being New Line Structures, ECD NY and Alba Services — which, they alleged, have a history of wage theft and permitting hazardous working conditions. There were also allegations of gender discrimination.” We talk to Chaz Rynkiewicz, Vice President and Director of Organizing for Laborers Local 79.
Additional links/info below…
- Laborers Local 79 website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- Laborers Local 79 Twitter thread about the #Alba3
- Dean Moses, The Villager, “Hundreds of Union Employees Protest Alleged Exploitative Working Conditions at Chelsea Terminal Warehouse”
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Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InTheseTimes.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.
