Laid-Off Employees Begin Hunger Strike

A handful of former Price Pfister employees began a weeklong hunger strike Thursday to protest downsizing and what they call unfair severance pay and health benefits for 300 workers laid off so far.

They were cheered on by about 100 other layoff casualties and workers who showed up toting umbrellas to protect them from the pouring rain.

“I prepared myself by being aware of what I’m going to do,” said Victoria Sevilla, 40, a seven-year worker who was laid off two months ago. “My daughters didn’t want me to do it but I told them this was my opinion.”

The protest will last until Thanksgiving eve, said Felix Hernandez, the organizer and a member of Teamsters Local 986. The hunger strikers will sleep in a tent on the sidewalk in front of the faucet factory, where they will be joined by non-fasting protesters during the day.

Hernandez said they will present Price Pfister the “Turkey of the Year Award” on Thanksgiving eve to call attention toreductions in the corporation’s work force.

A spokesman for the Black & Decker-owned company could not be reached for comment.

Price Pfister--the country’s third-largest faucet maker--recently shut down a foundry and a few months ago began laying off workers. Most of the jobs were shifted to a plant in Mexico.

The job cutbacks are needed to defray the cost of complying with state regulations requiring the firm to reduce the lead content of its faucets, the company has said.

Thursday, as rain drummed on the brightly colored umbrellas, the protesters yelled slogans in Spanish.

“What do we want, friends?” one man asked.

“Justice!” the crowd responded.

“When?” he asked.

“Now!” the crowd yelled.

The workers had been fighting to stop the layoffs. But fearing the layoffs could not be stopped, they have now focused on lobbying for better severance pay and medical benefits.

It was working at the plant that caused some of their health problems, they say.

“Sometimes in the night I toss and turn because I can’t sleep,” said Gerardo Ochoa, 41, a hunger striker who added that he and other workers have suffered illnesses such as bone ailments and headaches they say are caused by chemicals used at the plant.

The workers said the company has offered half a week’s severance pay and a week’s health benefits per year worked up to 26 years.

Those benefits, however, have been offered only to some of the most recent casualties, Hernandez said.

He said the union wants a package that would give everyone who has been laid off in the past nine months a full week’s pay and two weeks of health benefits per year worked up to 30 years.

“There’s basically no negotiations going on,” he said. “They’ve put their foot down.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon joined the protest.

He said he is working with city, state and national agencies to acquire resources that can be used to retrain and give unemployment benefits to those already laid off.

But he is not trying to stop the layoffs, he said.

“Those are union issues that are negotiated in private,” he said. “I’m focusing first on all those who have been immediately impacted by the layoffs.”

The city is also exploring the possibility of another company taking over the foundry or the workers themselves teaming with an investor to buy it.

Surrounded by workers crowding the sidewalk, the hunger strikers waited for their tent to be pitched.

“I ate normal and just waited for the moment,” said Emilio Serbin, 42, who had worked for the company for eight years until two months ago. “I said ‘bye to my children when they went to school and left instructions in case something happens to me.”

Added Cevilla: “With the help of God and the holy virgin, we’re going to come out OK.”