Drive To Unite Angelica

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Created on Wednesday, 03 March 2004 04:29

Written by Staff

NEW YORK, N.Y. – UNITE, the union of laundry workers in North America, announced that hundreds of workers at plants in more than 20 cities have begun a coordinated campaign to fight for unionization in the nation’s largest healthcare laundry provider, Angelica Textile Services. Angelica Textile Services, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Angelica Corporation, is the only national industrial laundry company with an exclusive focus on providing linens to hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities. One-third of its workforce is currently working without a union contract.

According to UNITE, workers in Angelica plants are facing workplace problems, including discrimination, dangerous working conditions, insufficient wages, and inaccessible healthcare. Additionally, saysUNITE, in the past, Angelica has responded to workers’ forming a union by threatening them.

“No worker at Angelica should face the kind of pressure and intimidation that Angelica engages in. That’s why so many of us who are already union members chose to celebrate Martin Luther King Day by joining the workers at non-union Angelica plants to demand a fair process for them to choose to unionize,” explained Barbara Johnson, a union activist at Angelica’s Chicago plant. “This fight is about respect and dignity at work.”

Angelica representatives did not return calls for comment.