Striking clothing trade union members at Hollander Home Fashions Co. in Los Angeles claimed "total victory" on May 18th when their ten week long strike forced management to raise their pay and benefits. Curiously though, the strike may have been more successful for trade union solidarity than financial gain. Hollander workers represented by UNITE!, and who average seven to eight dollars per hour even after twenty to thirty years experience, only gained raises of between thirty and ninety cents per hour and a defined 401K retirement plan. These wages are still below the "living wage" level that many unions now seek, which estimates that a worker in Los Angeles needs in excess of twelve dollars per hour to make it. However, with support from fellow workers at other Hollander plants in Pennsylvania and Georgia joining the striking Angelenos in work stoppages and other actions, the notion that trade union influence and worker solidarity is receding to the margin in the most advanced economy is surely premature.

It's pretty difficult to raise wages above market one company at a time. That's because high wages will pressure management to fire existing workers and hire new, cheaper workers. So, what they got were 401k plans, which are a retirement pension that is protected from taxes.

Benefits are often overlooked, but are a significant portion of one's pay. They don't seem to be subject to market forces in the same way as wages, and, employers prefer benefits to raises because benefits tend to encourage workers to stay even when wages are higher at other companies. Employees sometimes get better deals with benefits, and sometimes get screwed a little. (For example, if your bennies don't kick in until you've worked a year, you're getting screwed.)

It's cheaper, for example, to reduce health plan copayments and tack on a bennies like 100k of life insurance, than it is to give a an hour raise.

It's sometimes easier to fight for policies than wages. For example, some companies allow you to accrue vacation time forever, while others cut you off every few years (basically stealing your paid vacation time). The same goes for sick days. If you can't fight to raise wages, you can still fight to change policies, or use policies as a negotiating piece.

Bennies and policies are really what distinguish the "good" jobs from the "pretty good" jobs (the shitty jobs have neither). They improve stability in an industry, which is good for unionization efforts across the industry. (In other words, instead of just attacking Starbucks - who have good labor policies - how about organizing other cafes? Just because a business is small doesn't mean they are not a *business*.)

To raise wages, you need to unionize a lot of the existing labor in an industry, and then have the entire industry threaten to go on strike. Until you can do that, bennies are a good way to improve compensation without raises.

Unfortunately, this was no victory for the Hollander Workers. The workers were on strike because most of them had

their pay cut in HALF earlier this year. Their "raise" was on top of the pay cut - workers who had been earning /hr now earn an hour, plus this measly "raise". To claim this is a victory is an insult to the workers. They

were forced to accept the terms because they had been on strike for over two months and needed to return to their

jobs. How in the fuck are they going to save up money in their 401K if their wages are half what they used to be? Don't believe the ISO and the UNITE lies about victory. These workers are just as fucked as ever.

I wonder if they're keeping quiet about this because a partial win (or really, no win at all) would make the union look bad.

The situation is worse, not better. This is depressing.