El Milagro Inc. Chicago, Il 60608 as a Family Owned
Dozens of workers walked off the job Thursday at the El Milagro tortilla factory in Chicago'south Piddling Village neighborhood and were later on locked out by management when they attempted to render. The workers are protesting unsafe working conditions in the pandemic forth with low wages.
The workers were seeking a coming together to discuss grievances and demands with management by September 29 or protests will proceed, according to organizers Arise Chicago, a Democratic Party-aligned customs arrangement. Arise has called the lockout of the workers by management illegal.
According to a statement by Laura Garza, a old organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1, at least 85 El Milagro workers accept been exposed to COVID-xix since the pandemic began and v workers died. El Milagro has more than 400 workers in the Chicago area.
El Milagro workers who walked out Thursday were threatened past security when they returned from their walkout. "I was able to become to work today," said Martin, an El Milagro worker, at a press conference in Petty Village. "Showtime shift workers wanted to walk out to support the locked out second shift. We were greeted by a security officer with a gun intimidating us."
Management has hired Illinois Security Services' armed security guards to police the El Milagro facility and prevent locked-out workers from inbound.
Irma, a locked out worker, said, "I'thou significant and had medication and my purse in the establish and couldn't arrive. We had to telephone call the police to get inside. El Milagro merely allow the states in i at a time with a police escort."
El Milagro workers who walked out also encouraged the night shift workers to walk out, gearing up for a fight against management, as they accept received wide support among Chicago workers and across the country. Dark shift workers put out a note saying that they too would join the walkout Th nighttime.
Across the United States and internationally workers are reaching a breaking indicate later having been forced to work in dangerous sweatshop conditions in factories, schools and workplaces during the pandemic as more than 700,000 have died of the virus in the US alone.
The walkout by El Milagro workers is part of a growing resurgence of the class struggle and follows the recent sellout of the Nabisco workers strike in Chicago and beyond five states, where many workers had to work sixteen-hour days during the pandemic. The struggle of the El Milagro workers likewise takes identify at the aforementioned fourth dimension every bit ongoing strikes of Chicago mechanics and western Illinois Kone escalator workers, as well as contract battles heating up amid John Deere workers and Dana auto parts workers, who have had to work up to 84 hours a week in dangerous weather condition.
Teachers and educators in Chicago and across the country face up similarly dangerous weather with policies that have forced a deadly return to work and in-person educational activity as 2,000 people die every single solar day and thousands of working class children are exposed to the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
In April concluding year, the El Milagro facility in Chicago closed temporarily after the virus spread and one worker died from COVID-nineteen, as Chicago'southward Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot did nothing to protect essential workers. Many essential workers in Chicago demanded the city offer more testing in the jump and pay for staying habitation to protect their lives, which the city largely failed to do as information technology sought to reopen schools and businesses in the region.
"Nosotros work in temperatures in a higher place 90 degrees Fahrenheit," said 51-yr-old Pedro Manzanares to Univision, speaking of the intense heat in the mill. "We accept a thermometer that measures temperature and measures humidity. The device shows a temperature of 92 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit every day," he added.
Many El Milagro workers take described the brutal conditions they faced equally labor shortages during the pandemic hit the facility and direction imposed grueling speedups. "The packages arrive faster and I accept a few seconds to arrange them, put them on the packaging line and grab some other one. Imagine that earlier 50 boxes came out every 30 minutes, now lx boxes come out and information technology is a greater pressure," Manzanares said.
A listing of demands drawn up in a document to management also notes, "To this 24-hour interval, they have not resolved some of our demands such as sick days, our concerns nearly the food hall, and partially the salary bug, nevertheless, many other problems remain unresolved."
Workers at the facility are angry that the plant has been paying more to new hires to make up for labor shortages without increasing the wages of those that worked there for 20 to 30 years.
Conditions for El Milagro workers beyond the country are just as dangerous. The United states of america Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined the company'due south San Marcos, Texas, facility $218,839 in June. The OSHA report notes: "Previous inspections past the U.Southward. Department of Labor'due south Occupational Safety and Wellness Administration take given the operators of a family unit owned tortilla manufacturing plant southward of Austin every opportunity to resolve its safe issues. Yet, OSHA has found the company notwithstanding exposing workers to the risks of amputation and other serious injuries.
"Worker complaints of unsafe amputation hazards led OSHA to once more investigate conditions at El Milagro of Texas Inc. and the agency's inspectors determined that the visitor one time once more failed to follow hazardous energy control procedures to prevent sudden car kickoff-up or movement during maintenance and servicing. As a result, inspectors cited El Milagro for three echo violations related to energy control and iv serious violations for failing to follow lockout/tagout procedures."
The weather El Milagro workers face are felt by workers across the region. But figures like Jorge Mujica, a strategic organizer for Arise and a erstwhile Democratic Party aldermanic candidate, along with Democratic Socialists of America alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who spoke at the protests, are seeking to prevent a broader struggle from developing.
The struggle of the El Milagro workers deserves broad support and must be expanded, just information technology must decisively oppose whatsoever endeavor by organizations such as Arise to subordinate this struggle to the Democratic Political party. Workers should review the lessons of the struggle of the Commonwealth Window and Doors factory occupation in 2008, which was strangled and channeled into the Democratic Party. They should instead codify their own demands through the formation of a rank-and-file workers committee, contained of the Democratic Party, to mobilize support among Chicago educators, Ford autoworkers, Kone workers, John Deere workers and Dana workers every bit part of a broader struggle confronting the entire capitalist turn a profit organization.
Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/25/mila-s25.html
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