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It’s the nation’s largest wholesale market – described as “Costco on steroids” – and the nerve center of New York City’s food supply, supplying more than half of the fruits and vegetables that are found in take-out boxes and on restaurant plates and supermarket shelves.
But a strike for an increase in demand for wages of $ 1 an hour at the Hunts Point produce market in the Bronx, the first in more than three decades, has hampered its operations, leaving some produce to rot and threatening to scold a normally transparent supply chain.
The last strike, in 1986, led to shortages of everything from artichokes to grapes.
This time, the workers, members of a powerful local Teamsters, began the sixth day of their strike on Friday after negotiations on a three-year wage contract failed. The union asked for a raise of $ 1.60 per hour for each year of a three-year contract, with a $ 1 increase in wages. Market management, a cooperative of 29 vendors, responded with an offer of 92 cents an hour each year, with 32 cents of the increase payable.
The dispute raises questions about how employees are being treated at a time when the pandemic has triggered a wedge between people who have had to continue to report to work and those who have been able to work from home.
The workers, who earn between $ 15 and $ 22 an hour, say they deserve a better raise because they risk their health to supply the city with food during the outbreak.
Six workers have died and around 300 have fallen ill after contracting the coronavirus, said Charles Machadio, union vice president, Teamsters Local 202, and a veteran of the market. Yet the market remained open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“We all live in an uncertain world. I might be dead tomorrow, too, ”he said. Mr Machadio said market traders should recognize that workers “have come to work, keep your businesses running, risking their lives”.
A dollar increase, he said, would be a way of saying “thank you guys for coming to work, you really are heroes.”
None of the traders contacted spoke of the labor disagreement, but provided a joint statement.
He said the co-op spent $ 3 million on personal protective equipment for workers and shifted workflows and workstations to make the market safer, without having to fire anyone.
“Despite all of these challenges, we are very proud to have kept our unionized workers – the vast majority of whom live right here in the Bronx – at work and at the payroll with comprehensive health benefits, the Bronx having recorded a 40% unemployment, ”the release said.
Although hundreds of workers have left their jobs, the strike so far does not appear to have had a significant impact on the food supply, according to some market-supplied grocery stores.
Union members set up pickets outside the sprawling market daily, and on Tuesday police arrested six of them for obstructing traffic.
Several prominent politicians, all Democrats, have floundered in the dispute. Representative Ritchie Torres and mayoral candidate Andrew Yang gathered outside the market terminal on Monday. And on Wednesday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handed out hand warmers and coffee to strikers.
“There are a lot of things going upside down right now in our economy,” she said. “One of those things that is upside down is the fact that a person who helps bring the food to your table cannot feed their own child.”
The strike comes as labor groups have pushed the city to give more protection to workers, especially those in the food industry. Last month, city council approved two union-backed bills that ban large fast food companies from firing workers without good reason and allow them to appeal dismissals through arbitration.
But at Hunts Point, the co-op pushed back, saying the pandemic, which has permanently shut down many restaurants, had taken a heavy toll on their business, costing them tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Traders in the cooperative buy products from farms and importers, then distribute the products throughout the city and the wider region. The market transports 300,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables every day – about 60% of all produce in the city by some estimates – and claims it generates around $ 2.3 billion in revenue each year.
Despite the strike, the market remains open and the cooperative has hired temporary workers to break the strike to load and unload the trucks, causing outbursts of anger from the strikers whenever a truck arrives at the entrance to the market. .
Noah Lea, who runs a branch of the CTown supermarket chain on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said he gets all his greens from Hunts Point, hauling 400 pounds five times a week.
“I’m not worried at the moment,” he said, adding that the chain is protecting itself against possible disruption by relying on various markets, including the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, a competitor of Hunts Point.
Other grocery chains, including Gristedes, have also looked to other markets next to Hunts Point since the last strike to avoid potential shortages and secure lower prices. Big chains, like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, don’t depend on the market for their products.
Hunts Point strikers said that despite the co-op’s safety measures, the market is still filled with employees who sometimes work closely. The market is “so crowded, like Penn Station,” said worker Francisco Soto.
About 3,000 employees, including 1,400 union members, work in the vast 113-acre commodity market, said Machadio, which, along with the separate meat and fish markets, is the distribution center for Hunts Point. .
“We are at risk of getting sick and making our families sick, but we haven’t slowed down a bit,” said Diego Rutishauser, 49, who has worked in various jobs in the fruit and vegetable market for 27 years.
Mr Rutishauser wakes up at 2 a.m. everyday and takes two buses and a train from his home in Jamaica, Queens, to work at 5 a.m.
“We are not asking for the impossible,” he says.
Charles Platkin, director of the New York City Food Policy Center, said the longer the strike went on, the more likely it was that the supply of produce would become more difficult.
But he said workers deserve to be recognized for keeping the market functioning during a major public health crisis.
“Because it makes up such a large part of our food supply, it’s important to recognize the power of this market and how important these frontline workers are,” Platkin said, “and how important it is. important for your city to pay attention to the workforce there.
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