NEW YORK, N.Y.—Workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx have voted to ratify a new three-year contract, Teamsters Local 202 announced
Jan. 19.
The deal, reached just before the previous contract expired three days earlier, will give the about 1,100 warehouse workers, drivers, and others the union represents annual raises of 3% to 4%, a Teamsters spokesperson said. It also continues funding for the union’s health and pension funds.
“This strong contract is a testament to the solidarity of these union members,” Local 202 President Dan Kane, Jr., said in a statement. “They voted unanimously to authorize a strike, and then they stood strong. The market will continue to provide good jobs to the Bronx’s diverse working families.”
Local 202 had been in negotiations with the association of market companies since November. The union’s members had voted to authorize a strike Jan. 14, rejecting an offer that Kane said would have given them only a 30-cent-an-hour raise.
The 131-acre market, on the southeast Bronx waterfront, is the largest wholesale produce market in the world, with 35 merchants in four main rows. Open Monday through Friday nights from 10 p.m. to noon the next day, and 9 p.m. to noon Sunday nights, it supplies an estimated 60% of the fruit and vegetables sold and served at grocery stores and restaurants in New York City, and a significant share of those in the metropolitan area. It opened in 1967 to replace the old Washington Market in lower Manhattan, which was demolished to make room for the World Trade Center.
“We all know how expensive it is to live in New York, and having a union is more important than ever,” said Francisco Flores, a father of three who has worked at the market for 24 years, said in a statement provided by the Teamsters. “We are proud to be the workers who feed New York, but we also need good jobs that provide for our families. This contract shows the strength of our union membership and leadership.”
