Thursday, May 26, 2011

Video of the Day - "I'm in this to end the exploitation."




Workers who clean large retail chains like Cub Foods (a Minnesota grocer owned by SuperValu) are on their 5th day of a hunger strike to protest large pay cuts and unsafe, sometimes inhumane, working conditions:

"We've seen wages fall from about $10 an hour to $7.50 or $8 an hour," says Colloly Torres, speaking through a translator. "We work in a place surrounded by food, while a lot of the time we're not able to feed our own families because our wages are so miserable." [...]
Colloly Torres says Cub Foods may be the worst offender, but they're hardly the only one.
"This is a problem that's happening across the industry," he says.
Cub Foods argues the workers are barking up the wrong tree--they don't employ the workers, contracted cleaning companies do. Colloly Torres doesn't buy it:
"Big stores are pitting cleaning companies against each other to drive down the price of the contract, and we're the ones who end up suffering."