Mexican dock workers in New York draw wages at 1903 levels.Excerpt: "Workers at the five warehouses are in the throes of a potentially historic moment. They follow in the footsteps of Starbucks workers who have also unionized with the IWW in New York City.
Picard reflects, 'This is part of a larger movement. People are unionizing all over. There are worker centers across the country. But it’s hard not to lose faith sometimes. I think this thing has to grow more before it starts to have an impact. And the Labor Board system is broken.'
'We, the IWW, are interested in rekindling an institutional presence,' he says. 'I blame the other labor unions for letting it get to this point. We were so busy protecting what we have that we didn’t notice how bad things were getting. My wife and I worked in a factory in the 70s. We had a health care plan. We had vacation time and sick days. We considered it a sweatshop at the time, but we had benefits and only paid $100 a month in rent. If anyone had told me then that labor would get this bad, that people would be working 60-plus hours a week making $4 an hour paying $1200 a month in rent, I would have said you were crazy. What’s next? Working 16 hours a day for $2 an hour?'"
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