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Pharma Bosses Say They’re Replacing Striking Workers at Bronx Medical Factory
More than 200 workers at the Perrigo pharmaceutical plant have been on strike since Sept. 2 over what they describe as management’s threat to roll back overtime and expand shifts.
BRONX - Management at a Bronx pharmaceutical plant on strike since Sept. 2 announced it is hiring replacement workers “on a permanent basis,” according to a written notice posted near striking employees on the picket line Thursday morning, THE CITY has learned.
More than 200 factory workers at Perrigo, a company that manufactures private-label, over-the-counter medication, walked off the job after the Labor Day holiday weekend. The action followed the company refusing to negotiate its plans to roll back overtime protections and stop making contributions to their retirement plan, employees and their union said. The workers are represented by Teamsters Local 210.
Workers and Teamsters officials on Thursday said they were blindsided by Perrigo’s notice that the company intends to permanently replace striking workers. The two sides had their most recent bargaining session on Wednesday, and are scheduled to meet again on Sept. 10, union officials said. On Thursday evening, several red and yellow “now hiring” banners appeared at the facility’s entrance on Bathgate Avenue near East 173rd Street.
In a printed notice to their “unionized employees,” signed by Perrigo New York Management, the company wrote that it hired several replacement workers for first shift positions “on a permanent basis and will continue to do so,” with those words bolded and underlined.
“As such, the ability of a striking first shift employee to return to their position at the conclusion of the strike may depend on whether they have been permanently replaced,” the notice continued.
Union officials said the action could run afoul of federal labor standards and said they intended to file formal charges against the employer to the federal National Labor Relations Board.
“These are intimidation tactics. You’re trying to scare the people,” said Lydia Torres, vice president of Local 210. “It’s not like we’re not at the table, it’s not like we’re not talking, so what is the intent behind this?”
Brad Joseph, a spokesperson for the company, confirmed the company is hiring permanent replacement workers.
“To continue providing consumers with our important self-care products, we are taking the necessary steps to ensure product availability, including replacing workers on a permanent basis,” Joseph said in a statement.
Workers at Perrigo have been striking since Sept. 2. Alex Krales/THE CITY
Ricky Guzman, a union shop steward who has worked at the Bronx facility for about 20 years, said the company’s actions were “totally unfair and not OK” and accused management of attempting to “humiliate” and “scare” workers.
“You want us to go back in? We’re willing to go back in, but we have to reach a reasonable agreement,” said Guzman. “But then again, you humiliate us while we’re out here on the street, and start putting up these signs to start scaring people.”
“They’re not really being as professional as they say they are,” added Guzman.
At the center of the bargaining dispute is a proposal by management to expand operations at the facility to seven days a week. Workers are currently scheduled for four 10-hour shifts per week, with the option of earning overtime on Saturdays and Sundays. But management wants to increase shifts to 12 hours with Saturdays and Sundays to the regular schedule, which the union claims essentially eliminates the workers’ existing ability to earn overtime pay.
Perrigo counteroffered to pay some existing workers an additional $2 per hour on Saturdays and Sundays instead of the existing overtime rate of time-and-a-half, according to Torres. The union refused that deal, in part, because they claim it creates a “two-tiered” system.
“I told them I’m not against the 12 hours,” she said. “What I’m against is paying them straight time,” instead of the existing overtime.
The Teamsters represent compounders, inventory clerks, mechanic line operators and technicians at the Bathgate Avenue facility, which produces arthritis topical gel, hemorrhoid suppositories, and other over-the-counter medications sold at Target, CVS, Amazon, Costco and other major retailers nationwide
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