SF Parents, Laid-off Monster Cable Workers Appeal for Justice at MacWorld Conference

At Noon today hundreds of laid-off Monster Cable workers and their supporters will be Marching for Justice at the MacWorld Conference at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. When I talked to one of the workers, the mother of one of my daughter's former classmates, on Sunday she told me that the workers are still organizing for a fair severance and and an acknowledgement from Monster owner/CEO Noel Lee of their years of hard work making the company profitable.
Time: 12:30 pm (Starting time), 1:15 pm (March arrives at MacWorld)
Where: March Starting Point: Yerba Buena Gardens,Mission St. between 3rd and 4th Streets, SF. Endpoint: Moscone Center, Howard St., SF
From the Chinese Progressive Association -
On Wednesday, Jan. 10, at 12:30pm, over 100 laid-off Monster Cable workers and their supporters will march from Yerba Buena Gardens to various retailers including the Apple Store, CompUSA, Radio Shack and then to the MacWorld Conference and Exposition at Moscone Center. Laid off workers will expose the hypocrisy of Monster Cable CEO Noel Lee’s claims that he can’t afford to treat workers fairly,and call upon Apple Computers, Inc., which sells various Monster Cable Products, to tell Monster Cable “Stop being such a Monster!”
After weeks of protest, “’Head Monster’ Noel Lee finally met with worker representatives during the holidays, only to tell them he doesn’t have money to offer them a fair severance or support the community that made him wealthy. Meanwhile Monster Cable is organizing an expensive star-studded awards ceremony and concert for over 4,000 people at CES 2007, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, boasting that this annual show has “become the biggest social eventof CES in Las Vegas.” (Monster Cable press release, December 13, 2006).
From the workers:
“A small group of us finally met with Noel Lee, Monster Cable CEO on Dec. 30th. He told us that company finances were not good, and so he could notmeet our demands,” says Yijun Huang, who worked at thefactory for over 16 years. “And yet, we know that the company owns several dozen fancy sports cars and is throwing an expensive concert at the Las Vegas CES. Clearly, they are doing well! Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t want to pay any attention to laid-off workers, so we are going to more retailers and to MacWorld. We hope that Apple will help us put some pressure on Monster Cable.” Workers are turning to Apple Computers Inc. and to electronics consumers to tell Mr. Lee “Stop being such a monster!”
They hope to raise awareness about the plight of Monster Cable workers and more broadly, the issue of labor practices in the electronics industry.

Currently, Monster Cable Inc. makes a number of products for Apple Computers Inc., including the iTVlink, iEZClick, iSplitter, iCruze, iCarPlay, iCable and iStudioLink, with cost up to $100 per product.
On Oct. 20, 2006, Monster Cable Products, Inc. laid off over 120 production workers from their Brisbane facility, outsourcing their jobs to low-wage labor overseas to increase profits. The company is a highly profitable company which sells high end audiovisual cables, home theater equipment, etc. The laid-off workers are mostly monolingual middle-aged Chinese, Vietnamese, Latino, and Eastern European immigrants who worked an average of over 8 years and as many as 20 years for the company with an average wage of $11-$12 per hour. Laid off workers want a just severance as previous laid off workers and want the company to address their long term unemployment issues by contributing to a Community-Worker Transition Fund. In 2005, MonsterCable estimated sales of up to $300 million.
More info - Shaw San Liu - Tel: (415) 577-0628, Cell or(415) 391-6986 ext. 313,
E-mail: shawsan@cpasf.org; Alex T. Tom Tel: 510-449-1172, Email: alex@cpasf.org
See also - Grassroots-resistance-to-globalization.html
Grinch-of-year-sf-workers-protest.html