Recent Victories

Built for Speed: Local 1030's Lessons From Asbestos Removal Organizing
If LIUNA Local 1030 were a car, it would be built for speed: in only nine months, the New Jersey Local has gone from 15 percent to more than 60 percent market share in the asbestos removal industry, winning contracts from 40 companies and doubling its membership to 520.

New Jersey asbestos removal workers are Yugoslavian and Latino immigrants. They have been severely exploited by contractors, who ignore health and safety regulations, offer few or no benefits and have cut pay in recent years.

Now, with the largest and most successful organizing project in New Jersey in more than a decade, the state's asbestos removal workers are improving their lives and workplaces, said LIUNA Vice President and Eastern Regional Manager Raymond Pocino.

The campaign hasn't been without difficulties:

• Workers speak mainly Spanish and Serbian with virtually no knowledge of English, creating language barriers.

• Many workers are undocumented immigrants and feel vulnerable and fearful of joining together in a union because of their immigration status.

The keys to the campaign's ongoing success:

• Rather than use organizers who didn't speak the workers' language or struggle to find experienced organizers who did, the Local trained 20 asbestos workers as organizers. Not only did the rank-and-file organizers speak the same language as employees, they understood the work, shared the same culture, often lived in the same neighborhoods and were able to effectively deliver a message about workers' rights and the hope for better conditions. Rank-and-file organizers made more than 1,000 house calls and developed contacts in virtually every asbestos removal firm in the state.

• The union developed community and local political support to pressure employers, embolden workers and identify the union with the local community in Patterson, NJ, where most workers live. To further strengthen community ties, the union has built a new asbestos abatement training school in the community, which offers skill training in multiple languages.

• Upon developing worker support, the campaign relied on a series of job actions during the summer of 2001, which brought several companies to the table. "On any given week, we were running job actions against seven or eight different contractors simultaneously," said Dave Johnson, director of the Laborers' Eastern Region Organizing Fund.

Local 1030's effort drew heavily on the blueprint of the 1996 New York City asbestos removal campaign, in which more than 2,000 asbestos removal workers joined Local 78, accounting for nearly the entire market. The goal in New Jersey is to recruit all of the state's 1,500 asbestos workers and have contracts with all the state's asbestos removal companies.

« Back to Main

2002 © LIUNA—All Rights Reserved. Legal & Privacy.