Workers have been holding strong at a
picket line outside Dichello Distributors in Orange, Conn., since March
10, when they showed up to work at 4 a.m. and found themselves locked
out by the owners.
Since that day, the 95 workers
affected, members of Teamsters Local 443, have maintained a presence
outside Dichello 24 hours a day. The company distributes
Anheuser-Busch products to thousands of restaurants, bars and liquor
and grocery stores in the area. People driving by honked their horns
in support, and many have brought coffee and food to the line.
In February, the workers voted
unanimously not to accept a new contract offered by Dichello. Under
the proposed contract, the workers offered to sacrifice pay increases
in order to maintain their benefits and pension program. Dichello’s
owner wants to end contributions to the workers’ union-run healthcare
and pension plans. The contract would also remove the guarantee of
the employees having a minimum number of hours of work every week,
and at the same time change the overtime pay structure to make it
harder to earn overtime. Currently, the workers make overtime for any
hours over eight per day. The proposal would limit overtime to any
hours over 40 per week, which would be more difficult to reach with
the reduced hours.
The company has put want ads in local
papers for permanent replacements for the workers, and is hiring
people from other states to continue operations.
It is clear to the workers what the
owner is trying to do: “He’s trying to break the union,”
said Randy Monsky, who has worked at Dichello since 1978. “The
price of everything is going up around here, and we’re just looking
to keep our benefits.”
The workers celebrated a small, but
important, victory on April 12, when the state of Connecticut
certified the situation as a lock-out and granted unemployment
benefits to the workers. Dichello had been sending out press releases
calling the action a strike, trying to shift the blame onto the
workers.
The locked-out workers have asked local
bars, restaurants and individuals to boycott the products distributed
by Dichello, including Budweiser-brand beers, by not serving or
ordering them. Some establishments have responded by taking the beer
off their taps.
Monsky told Liberation: “We’re
holding out and we’re going to keep holding out for the benefit
package. That’s what we need, that’s what we want, and we’ll be out
here as long as we have to hold out for that.”
