Support Warehouse Workers Uniting
Charles Ickes, CEO of Bergen Logistics and Magnus Nilsson, CEO of Elanders AB
It’s hard work to keep fashion running.
Legions of warehouse workers store, sort, pack, and ship garments, bags, shoes, and accessories for New York’s fashion industry. At Bergen Logistics, a subsidiary of the Swedish logistics giant Elanders, warehouse workers allow high fashion brands like Philip Lim to get the latest styles into the hands of their fashion-hungry customers. Our labor is often invisible, but our impact can be seen in Fashion Week runway shows, online shopping carts, and Soho storefronts.
Though we are essential to one of New York’s core industries, Elanders / Bergen Logistics warehouse workers are underpaid and overworked. Some of us at the warehouse are working two jobs to get by. We are parents and immigrants. Now more than ever, we deserve livable wages, fair benefits, security, and respect.
That’s why we formed a union and asked the company to recognize us.
From the outset, Elanders / Bergen Logistics refused to recognize the union and has used every available tactic to delay this process. The company brought in union-busting consultants, and filed challenges and objections to a union election instead of coming to the bargaining table. Now they’re being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board for allegedly firing one of our coworkers for her organizing activities.
These are typical anti-union moves by bosses who, emboldened by the Trump administration, think they no longer have to respect their workers.
But we’re fighting back. And we need everyone—everyone who believes in an ethical fashion industry, everyone who believes in the right to organize, everyone who’s willing to stand up for immigrants and working families—to join us.
Tell Elanders / Bergen Logistics to quit their union-busting, drop the election challenges and objections, recognize our union, and come to the bargaining table!
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To:
Charles Ickes, CEO of Bergen Logistics and Magnus Nilsson, CEO of Elanders AB
From:
[Your Name]
Workers at the Elanders / Bergen Logistics Distribution Center in New Jersey are exercising their fundamental right to form a union. They want to collectively bargain for better wages, working conditions, and respect on the job. They asked Elanders to recognize their union back in November. Elanders / Bergen Logistics did not do so. Instead, the company has engaged in multiple delay tactics, and is under investigation by the US government’s National Labor Relations Board for allegedly firing a worker for her organizing activities.
Elanders has committed to supporting workers’ rights to unionize in its Code of Conduct and through international labor standards to which Elanders subscribes. Elanders’ Code of Conduct states:
"Elanders respects the right of all employees to form and join an association to represent their interests as employees, to organize, and to bargain collectively or individually."
The actions taken by Elanders / Bergen Logistics violate the spirit of these commitments and undermine the values that Elanders claims to uphold. Elanders has the responsibility to ensure that all its subsidiaries adhere to its standards.
I urge you to immediately reverse course. Stop the union-busting, reinstate the terminated worker, drop the election challenges and objections, recognize the union, and engage in fair and good-faith negotiations.