NEW YORK, N.Y.—A possible strike by 1,100 workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx was averted on the evening Jan. 16, as Teamsters Local
202 reached a tentative deal with management a few hours before their old contract expired.
The union’s members will vote on whether to ratify the deal Jan. 18-19, a spokesperson for Teamsters Joint Council 16 told LaborPress.
Local 202, which represents warehouse workers, drivers, and others at the sprawling market on the southeast Bronx’s waterfront, had voted unanimously on Jan. 14 to authorize a strike, rejecting management’s contract offer on the grounds that it didn’t include an adequate wage increase. “These are the working families that make up the Bronx, and they need more than a 30-cent raise,” Local 202 President Dan Kane, Jr., said in a statement.
If there had been a strike, it would have been the first walkout since the 1980s at Hunts Point, the union said. The market provides most of the fruit and vegetables sold and served at restaurants and stores in the New York City metropolitan area.
