Stella D’Oro workers still rise

A mood of working-class pride was in the air on Aug. 15 as hundreds crowded in front of the Stella D’Oro Biscuit Company plant gates for a two-hour rally. The occasion was the one-year anniversary of the strike of Bakery Workers Local 50 members against barbaric concessions that were being demanded by the owners, the vulture capitalist Brynwood Partners.

Clarence Thomas with Mike Filippou. WW photo: G. Dunkel

Speakers recalled picket lines in the heat, rain and freezing cold; the fact that not one of the approximately 135 workers crossed the line; Brynwood’s use of temporary scabs; winning a National Labor Relations Board case against the company; returning to work on July 7, with back pay until May, only to learn that the bosses are scheming to sell and possibly relocate production as early as October; and a July 29 N.Y. City Council resolution supporting all efforts to maintain these jobs at decent pay in this community.

A common theme was the awareness that any attack on the Stella D’Oro workers is an attack on the community, and that a victory can strengthen all working and unemployed people.

While the city’s top trade union officials took the longest to recognize the urgency of material aid for Local 50, the need for solidarity is well understood by a critical mass of rank-and-file activists and leaders. As individuals or through organizations, including the Stella D’Oro Strike Solidarity Committee, which still meets weekly, people have been promoting the Stella D’Oro workers’ cause in unions, communities and the media, with the involvement of strikers who have become highly respected leaders, and in coordination with the Local 50 leadership.

It appeared on Aug. 15 that each of the locals, regional unions, community activists and clergy who had been there at one time or another during the strike were now here all at once—not just to celebrate but to get further marching orders for how to solidify the partial, legal victory into real lasting job and contract security for Stella D’Oro workers.

Three-fourths of the speakers were supporters, ranging from San Francisco’s Clarence Thomas of the International Longshore and Warehouse union to Teresa Gutierrez of the May 1 Immigrant Rights Coalition, who invited Stella D’Oro workers to lead next year’s May Day march in New York; Reverend Luis Barrios and two other clergy, who had each welcomed strike support presentations at their places of worship; and Mike Gimbel of the New York City Central Labor Council, who declared the workers to be the leadership of the labor movement at this time and urged everyone to get resource commitments from every delegate assembly.

There was Ann Harrison of Hudson Valley United Teachers, representing 600,000 members “who didn’t buy Stella D’Oro cookies for 11 months”; and Mike Eilenfeldt, a CLC delegate and Bail Out the People Movement organizer, who urged further pressure on the city council to act on their resolution. President Barbara Bowen of the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York stated that the citywide university faculty and staff union had stood “in admiration of and in solidarity with you.”

In a new development, International Electrical Workers Local 3 Assistant Business Manager Luis Restrepo announced in English and Spanish that the union is prepared to “support whatever Local 50 wants us to do, with our members and our resources.” He was introduced by IBEW member and solidarity organizer Edwin Molina, a constant on the Stella D’Oro picket line, who described how pickets “turned the tables on March 11” when they prevented scabs from driving into the plant parking lot.

Bakery Workers Local 50 Treasurer Calvin Williams brought greetings from President Joyce Alston. He and strike leaders Mike Filippou, Emelia Dorsu, Sara Rodriguez and Eddie Marrero thanked supporters for their dedication and asked that people “stay with us until we win this too.”

Among the union logos seen in the crowd were American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 37, Teamsters Local 138, Transit Workers Union Local 100, Empire State Labor College, Metro Area American Postal Workers Union, New York Nurses United, United Federation of Teachers Local 2, Service Employees Local 1199 and the National Writers’ Union.

The multinational crowd included a prominent number of younger faces, including electricians/apprentices, students such as Kira from the State University of New York Graduate Student Employees union, and community organizers such as Rob from the South Bronx Deserves Respect Coalition, which is fighting Yankee Stadium for the promised share of jobs and income for Bronx residents.

One can optimistically conclude that the gravity of this struggle, whose main spokespersons are African-American union

officials and immigrants from Ghana, Greece, Puerto Rico and elsewhere, is strong enough to override decades of exclusionism in the building trades. The bosses’ racist and sexist ideology, coupled with some level of economic privilege, has often been enough to keep a predominantly white, male sector of the labor movement from uniting with nationally oppressed workers and communities.

In the book “High Tech, Low Pay,” Workers World Party founding chairperson Sam Marcy explained that it is harder to divide workers once they are together at the workplace and once actual material conditions expose who the allies are—and who, like investors such as Brynwood, are the true enemies of our class.

Those in New York are asked to help ensure that the Stella D’Oro workers’ contingent at the front of this year’s Labor Day parade reflects an unshakable determination to win. The contingent gathers at 10:00 a.m. on Sept. 12 at 45th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Check bctgm.org and stelladorostrike2008.com for breaking news.