Hunts Point Strike
Reported by DAVID CRUZ
Elected officials, including Bronx/Queens Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are now backing the workers' strike at the Hunts Point Produce Market, where employees have entered day four of a strike over wages.
Some 1,400 employees represented by the Teamsters Local 202 union, comprised of warehouse workers and drivers at the gargantuan industrial site in the Bronx, help move around 300,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables daily. The Hunts Point Produce Market is a cooperative of 30 merchants who purchase produce from farms and importers and distributes the goods to grocers, restaurants, and more. All told, they handle 60% of the city's produce.
On January 17th, members negotiating for a $1 hourly increase went on strike following a stalemate during negotiations with market owners. And with every day that passes, the effects of reduced output from the market will be felt by supermarkets and restaurants that depend on them.
"If you notice that aisles of produce are little low and you see the stuff starting to turn a little bit, you know that's when you're gonna notice," Raymond Rivera, a driver and union member, said.
"When you're standing on this line, you're not just asking for $1, you are asking for transformational change for your lives, over the lives of every food worker across this country, for kids or food workers across the country," Ocasio-Cortez said, flanked by New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and state Assemblymember Amanda Septimo on a frigid Wednesday night outside the enormous, city-owned property. "Because there's a lot of things upside down right now in our economy. And one of those things that are upside down [...] is the fact that a person who is helping get the food to your table cannot feed their own kid. That's upside down."