Price Pfister Workers Go Hungry...

PACOIMA, CA -- From Thanksgiving to Christmas, while others in Los Angeles celebrated the holidays by eating too much, a group of workers in the San Fernando Valley didn't eat at all.

Housed in a motor home and three vans, they went hungry to protest their sudden dismissal by the Price Pfister plant that looms over their makeshift planton. Workers are angry over some 300 layoffs at the plant which have been going on since January of last year. The job losses are a product of the company's decision to shift ever more production to a plant just south of the U.S. border. More layoffs are a virtual certainty.

"I thought the company respected me since I'd been there over seven years," said hunger striker Emilio Servin. "But on October 10 they called in about 30 of us, and told us there just wasn't any more work. No reason. And no severance. Some of us had spent our lives in that plant." If Servin doesn't find another job soon, he fears he'll lose the house he bought four years ago. At 42 years old, with three children, that's a scary prospect.

For decades, workers like Servin have turned out the Price Pfister bathroom and kitchen faucets in millions of Southland homes. In the process the company has employed thousands of working class local residents. Most are immigrants, part of a Southern California industrial workforce that, despite downsizing, is 717,000 strong. Most of this workforce comes to LA from Mexico, Central America, and Asian countries around the Pacific Rim. These workers have been the backbone of strikes and union organizing drives for almost a decade, producing more labor activity here than any other area of the country.

At Price Pfister, jobs are moving south, as management seeks to reduce labor costs. The company has been helped by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has lowered barriers at the border for goods and capital.

Last October, frustrated at the increasing pace of the

Hunger Striker at the Pacoima, CA Price Pfister plant.
Photo: © Slobodan Dimitrov, Impact Visuals

layoffs, Price Pfister workers formed a committee to fight for severance and extended health benefitsfor those laid off. Since then, they've gotten strong support from local and national Teamster leaders. But negotiations have stalled. The company's last offer was to pay laid off workers one half week's pay per year of service, up to 26 years, but only for workers still employed at the time an agreement is signed. The three hundred workers already on the streets, including the hunger strikers, would get nothing.

In response to rising protests, workers say that on October 23 Price Pfister vice president Sam Wheeler threatened them in a closed, mandatory meeting. The union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

"This is obviously another sad episode in the history of the North American Free Trade Agreement," says Joel Ochoa, community coordinator for the Los Angeles Manufacturing Action Project (LAMAP). LAMAP, a project initiated by unions, academic researchers and community activists, has become a staunch ally of the Price Pfister workers. "The company is moving because labor costs less in Mexicali, and in the process it's eliminating well-paying, stable jobs here in LA."

Hunger striker Victoria Sevilla, a former packing department worker, used to earn $11.03 an hour, her best pay since arriving in LA from southern Mexico in 1977. At 40 years old, with two children and four grandchildren, she doubts she will find another job at a similar wage. "There are plenty of jobs for immigrants in LA," she explains, "but almost all pay the minimum."

By contrast, Black and Decker Corp., the corporate parent of Price Pfister, saw its 1995 profits soar to $224 million, almost double the year before. Despite this apparent rosy picture, however, the Price Pfister plant is under pressure to improve its margins. Shareholders are demanding ever higher profits from firms that have always made money, but now aren't making enough.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles officials have offered an incentive package that includes tax breaks and loans for businesses located in economic enterprise zones -- including Price Pfister. The strikers are demanding a quid pro quo: Any incentive given to Price Pfister should be accompanied by employment guarantees for the existing workforce, as well as fair severance and extended health benefits for those who have already lost jobs, they say.

Servin and his companions organized the hunger strike in order to focus even more public attention on their situation. They're also leafleting in front of the Home Depot, which sells the faucets they used to make.

"How can Price Pfister dump us out of our jobs, and then turn around and expect Latinos to continue buying their faucets?" asks hunger striker Alejandra Torres. "What they are doing is a kind of discrimination against our whole community." -- David Bacon