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Cold cuts
Key Food workers locked
out amid negotiations
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
These workers are being
treated like a piece of meat.
Butchers and meat wrappers
Food in Park Slope have been
locked out of work for more
than 10 days amid ongoing
union negotiations with the
store’s owner, who has replaced
temporary workers as he
seeks to eliminate their existing
benefits, according to the outof
work workers.
The meat vendors have not
been idle during their forced
suspension, and the scorned
Key Food staff have placed
inflatable pigs and rats outside
to expose the boss’s cutthroat
tactics to their longtime cus-
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Key Food employees, from left, Freddy Mule, Bonnie Alarcon, and Gilberto
Ferreras protesting the bosses decision to slash their benefits.
On the radio: Karen Auster,
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Photo by Colin Mixson
tomers. The dramatic sidewalk
display is necessary for
the workers to get their jobs
back and support their families,
they said.
“I got my wife and two
daughters, my granddaughter
and grandson, and I have
a mortgage to pay,” said Alexander
Torres, a Key Food
butcher for 21 years. “It’s not
easy.”
The Park Slope workers are
among some 40 employees that
grocery store magnate Benjamin
Levine — who owns four
Kings County Key Foods, including
stores in Sunset Park,
Greenpoint, and Bensonhurst,
in addition to the Park Slope
market — kicked to the curb on
April 7, in retaliation to workers
picketing the store during
their lunch hour the day before,
an action they undertook
in response to the owner failing
to show at several bargaining
meetings.
Reps for United Food and
Commercial Workers Local
342 have been bargaining
with Levine for more than two
years, trying to prevent the annihilation
of their members’
health and retirement benefits,
in addition to netting the
workers a modest pay increase
after four years without any
raises, according to a member
of the union’s negotiating
team.
“They’re actively trying to
take away stuff the employees
already had,” said Lisa
O’Leary, secretary treasurer
for UFCW Local 342. “These
people haven’t had a raise in
four years. They’re not being
greedy.”
The butchers, who have
been replaced by temporary
workers amid the lockout,
have urged customers to shop
elsewhere during the lockout.
Many shoppers have heeded
the call and sought their groceries
elsewhere, but older
Park Slopers tend to ignore
their pleas for lack of any
nearby alternative, according
to Torres.
“Some people, especially
old, people walk in,” he said.
“They say they don’t have anywhere
else to go.”
Nobody wants to get back
into Key Food more than the
locked-out staffers, who described
the crushing stress of
unpaid bills and looming rent
deadlines.
“It hurts so bad, to be treated
like this — I’m a human being,”
said Leslie Callier, who
has worked as a meat wrapper
at Key Food for more than 30
years. “I’m terribly stressed
out. I can’t sleep. I don’t know
how I’m going to pay the rent.
It’s killing me.”
Levine could not be reached
for comment.
Schneps Media
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Auster, born in Flatbush,
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about growing up on Long
Island with a father who instilled
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She got her start in the
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Auster discusses what has
made her successful in this
week’s edition of “Power
Women.”
Karen Auster
Tune in to the 15-minute
podcast at SchnepsBroadcasting.
com and wherever
podcasts are heard.
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