Walter Bosque

Acupuncture Technician / Casa Promesa / Bronx, NY

Walter Bosque, an acupuncture technician and 1199SEIU delegate at Casa Promesa in the Bronx, is fighting a two-front battle.

First, there’s the contract campaign his 225 members have been waging since their previous pact expired in June 2005. Promesa, Inc. refuses to participate in the 1199SEIU Benefit and Pension Funds. More than 180 members have signed a petition demanding Fund coverage. They are preparing for an informational picket line and, if necessary, a strike.

Bosque’s second battle is related to the first.  He sees the hard line Promesa, Inc. is taking as part of a national plan “to Wal-Mart American workers.”

“If we allow corporate America to take back all we fought for in the 1960s and 70s, we’ll all be broke and on breadlines,” warns Bosque. “They’re trying to create a Third World country within America, a place of part-time workers with no benefits, no vacations, no sick time. A place where workers are like slaves.”

What’s the solution? “We have to educate ourselves so we have the knowledge and power to demand and create change,” says Bosque. “We can’t let corporate America do this. We need to build the labor movement back to where it was.”