BROOKLYN, NY, December 29 — At a December retiree meeting of former city workers, “C” told us of a struggle our retiree group should support. She is a member of the tenants’ association of “Flatbush Gardens.” This is a sixty-year-old housing complex of some 59 buildings and over 10,000 tenants. Seventy members of Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ have been locked out by their employer, Renaissance Equity Holdings, since November 29, 2010. She told us that her tenant association had joined the picket lines already. They see a common interest in fighting a landlord who has been cited for over 7,000 violations in this housing complex. 

Many of us knew of this complex when it was called Vanderveer Estates. The management company wants to attract more affluent white tenants from Manhattan. The name has changed but the rats have remained.

A group of retirees visited the picket lines to show solidarity and to get to know these workers. We learned that the workers’ contract expired last spring and after they filed an Occupational Safety and Health Complaint in October, Renaissance locked them out. As is the experience of many workers, their boss is demanding a big cut (34%) in pay and reductions in family health coverage.

Many workers explained that they are tenants in, as well as workers for, “Flatbush Gardens.” We were told that the union had filed an unfair labor practices suit against Renaissance. We warned that workers can’t rely on the bosses’ system. We cited the Stella D’Oro struggle where, although the union “won” at the Labor Board, the bosses were not forced to comply with the order long after the struggle had ended.

In a modern twist of the bosses’ racist tactics, Latino immigrants have been hired to scab on the locked-out workers who are, like the tenants, from the Caribbean. On the picket line, we had firm discussions about fighting scabs but not falling for the bosses’ racist and anti-immigrant, divide-and-conquer tactics. After many good discussions, we promised to return with more workers and students from nearby schools to support this struggle.

Our retiree association has had good discussions about the reasons for the sharpening attack on government-worker pensions and benefits. We have talked about money being pumped into the war as international capitalist competition intensifies. Our efforts to support our locked-out brothers help us see the bigger picture of capitalism as the contradiction between the bosses and the working class.