Ben Davis Workers Take Off Work to Protest Concession Demands About 100 garment workers, wearing red UNITE shirts, were circling in front of Kaplan's, a clothing store on Market Street, chanting in English and Chinese. The workers, mostly Chinese women, had walked off the job to do informational picketing, informing customers of their struggle with their employer, Ben Davis.

Ben Davis is a maker of work shirts and work pants. The Ben Davis factory in San Francisco is a unionized operation, recently transferred from UFCW to UNITE. Even so, their wages had been so low that they were slated to get a pay raise due to the new city-wide minimum wage of $8.50 an hour that was approved by San Francisco voters last November. Ben Davis Inc. is a profitable company that could afford to grant the pay increase but Frank Davis, the company's owner, would rather not see any reduction to the bottom line.

To reimburse him for the raise to $8.50 an hour, Frank Davis is demanding that workers pay half the costs of their health coverage; and this will only cover the employees, not their family members. The company is also demanding cuts to vacations and sick days. Davis is threatening to relocate the manufacturing operation to Mexico or China or some other third world country if the workers refuse to go along. The workers have voted to authorize a strike. Because the company makes workwear, the company may also be susceptible to a boycott, given that they have mainly working class customers.