New Haven Independent

Union staffer Joseph Isidore (pictured) was an energetic chant leader. Two of his favorites were, “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” and “What’s outrageous? Sweatshop wages!”

One of the Latina workers who passed the picket line heading to her car told this reporter she’s been at New England Linen for six years and makes just under $8 an hour; another said she’s been there eight years and makes just over $8 an hour. They said benefits are expensive, so they don’t get them. They said a majority of workers support the union drive, but some of them are afraid to say so publicly, fearing harassment from the company.

Click here for a previous story on the fight to unionize the plant.

Wilfredo Larancuent (pictured), a vice president of Unite Here (one of the country’s biggest unions, represented in New Haven by Yale’s unionized workers, among others), said the company has held several captive audience meetings with workers this week, trying to discourage the workers from bringing in the union. Such meetings are not illegal, he said, “but they’re immoral, trying to show these workers who make low wages and have unaffordable health insurance that they don’t need a union.” He said New England Linen is currently the only industrial laundry in New Haven. The union wants the company to allow the workers to negotiate a contract when a majority has signed union cards.

The company did not return calls seeking comment.

Fr. Jim Richardson, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in the Hill, was walking the picket line in support. (He’s pictured on the left, with community activist Stanley Heller.) “I’m here because people have the right to organize. It’s only fair. It’s a fundamental right, just as we have the right to breathe, we have the right to organize.”

Bob Proto is president of Unite Here Local 35 at Yale, vice president of the national union, and president of the Greater New Haven Labor Council (pictured in picket line photo below, in jacket and tie). He told the crowd, “New Haven is a union town. The owners of New England Linen are going to be taught a lesson “” that you cannot run a sweatshop in the center of New Haven!”