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The
seeds of the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative
were first planted in 1999 with the formation of an independent
union called Trabajadores Unidos at the Chicago
Pickle Company, a subsidiary of Vienna Beef Co. in Chicago.
“Workers United” sprang out of
the Adult Education program at Erie Neighborhood House.
Most of the Chicago Pickle Company workers attended Labor Rights
classes at Erie House and learned about forming a union and
negotiating collectively. Trabajadores Unidos successfully negotiated
wage and benefit improvements with Vienna Beef. Other immigrant
workers employed who worked in exploitive conditions also began
to unionize or seek better working conditions as a result of
the program at Erie House. In 2000, worker leaders from a number
of different companies united to form a new organization--the
Chicago Area Workers’ Center with the
mission to educate ourselves about our rights and
to learn how to organize ourselves to end the fear, the oppression
and the exploitation that exists in our places of work.
The original Board of Directors included leaders from Vienna
Beef Chicago Pickle Company, Azteca Foods, Vita Foods, Manor
Tools, and Algroup Wheaton Plastics.
The
Chicago Area Workers’ Center situated
itself in the primarily Mexican immigrant neighborhood of
Little Village and worked to encourage mutual support and
information-sharing between workers in different workplaces.
The Center built a large membership and had success in organizing
workers to collectively fight for their rights at workplaces
such as 24-Karat Ironworks, Universal Statutory, Quality Concrete,
Republic Windows, Lakeside Cleaning Services, Diana’s
Bananas, the Form House and others. The Center also collaborated
with day laborers because the workers saw many of their own
organizing campaigns undermined by companies using temp agencies
to replace strikers and workers fired as result of organizing
activities.
In
2002 the Chicago Area Workers’ Center joined with Erie
Neighborhood House, the Center for Labor
and Community Research, the Day Labor Organizing
Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
(later to become the San Lucas Workers’ Center),
South Austin Coalition, and St. Pius
V Parish to form the Day Laborer Collaboration
(DLC). The DLC set out to organize and train day
laborers, develop worker leadership, study the temporary staffing
industry, and advocate for systemic change in the temporary
staffing market in the Chicago metropolitan area and the state
of Illinois.
In
December 2004, the Chicago Area Workers’ Center merged
with the Day Laborer Collaboration to form the Chicago Workers’
Collaborative. |
