gale's pal jeffrey hits a homer

jeffrey's 

 the guy gale  tells me 

  may form a big ticket unit
 to go after 
   the commission retail sector 

 but first ....

===================



=============================

"Among the thousands of stores 
in New York's low-income
neighborhoods, 
labor unions have virtually no presence,
except in a few supermarkets"

" But in a remarkable
culmination to a yearlong struggle
 95 workers at a
chain of 10 sneaker stores 
have formed a union"

"For much of last year,
 workers with the sneaker chain,
Footco, 
protested widespread minimum-wage violations
 Last month, however,
 they
signed a union contract 
that raised their wages 
and
gave them paid vacations 
and health insurance"
.

"Footco's employees 
~ almost all of them are immigrants~ 
used some unusual pressure tactics
 to form a union"

"They worked with a community group 
that threatened to boycott Footco's stores
 and they filed a complaint
with Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
 claiming minimum-wage
 and overtime violations"


"The union that Footco's workers joined
, the Retail,
Wholesale and Department Store Union"
.


"Jeffrey Eichler
 the union's coordinator 
of retail organizing" 

"We're going
to try to use this model
 elsewhere in the city."

"Ms. Brooker, 23,
 a native of St. Vincent's
 in the Caribbean,
 said that last summer
 her Footco store,
called New York Sneakers,
 paid her $4.75 an hour
 and
never paid time-and-a-half for overtime
, even when she
worked 60-hour weeks

.... in fact when dshe did she didn't even get straight time
she got 230 bucks not 
the 280 she earned at straight time  "
.

"Footco's workers turned to
 Make the Road by Walking,
 a
community group in Bushwick 
that helps immigrant
workers. 
That group and the retail workers' union
 began
gathering information about wage violations
 at Footco's
stores in Bushwick, Brownsville,
 Jamaica, Washington
Heights and other neighborhoods."


"Make the Road has strong community support
 ~ 1,500
people have paid $100 each to become members ~ 
and to
help Footco's workers,
 it threatened a boycott unless
the company signed its "Good Business Community
Agreement."





"Footco recognized the union in October,
 pressured by
the complaint filed with the attorney general.
Negotiators for the workers told Footco's owner that if
he signed a union contract and improved wages, Mr.
Spitzer might demand less back pay for wage violations.

."On Jan. 18, after three months of negotiations, the two
sides signed a contract.
 The three-year accord sets
wages at $7.25 an hour,
 rising to $7.50 on July 1. To
increase earnings, 
it guarantees most workers 45 hours
of work each week, 
meaning five hours of overtime".

"The contract gives workers 
three paid sick days a year
(they had not been getting paid
 if they stayed home
sick).

The contract also gives 
two paid bereavement days 
and
one week of paid vacation,
 rising to two weeks after
five years on the job.
 Previously, Footco's employees
had no paid vacation."