Second Darwin’s sandwich shop opens in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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Thursday, June 2, 2005
Darwin’s Ltd. opened a second location of their sandwich shop at 1613 Cambridge Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in late May. It is situated across from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. Previously limited to one location at 148 Mount Auburn Street, the second store seats approximately 30 people and sells sandwiches, coffee drinks, locally made pastries, as well as some produce and snack foods. The establishment also provides free wireless access through the WanderingWifi service. The shop plays music during the day; during this reporter’s visit to the shop, selections played ranged from David Bowie to The Strokes. The store is air-conditioned.
Key differences between the original store and the new one include the unification of the cafe and the sandwich line now behind one counter, handicap accessible restrooms, no beer or wine sold at location, and a lack of a loyal customer base. Although the recent months have been slow, business is expected to pick up with the return of Cambridge area students this autumn.
While the original location of Darwin’s was recently cited for lacking sneeze guards before the kitchen counter, according to the Cambridge Chronicle, the new Darwin’s has acrylic sheets along the front of their sandwich counter. The original Darwin’s has installed the sneeze guard at the kitchen counter the day following citation.
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Workers at Swansea auto parts plant vote to strike
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Workers at the Linamar automobile parts factory in Swansea, Wales voted by a wide margin today to strike, after an dispute over the firing of one of the worker’s union organisers remained unresolved.
An 88% turnout resulted in a vote of 139 in favor of striking to 19 against.
Canada-based Linamar took over the plant from Visteon in July 2008. Shortly after the takeover, Linamar offered 208 of the plant’s 360 workers voluntary redundancy, hoping to transfer work to Mexico; 140 accepted. Linamar claims to have no long-term plans to close the plant. On April 28, however, Linamar fired political activist and union convener Rob Williams. Upon Williams’ firing, he refused to leave the Visteon plant. The police escorted him from the building as the day shift workers at the plant staged a spontaneous walkout. Williams was temporarily reinstated after emergency negotiations between Unite and Visteon management, but his dismissal was made permanent a week later.
Unite, Williams’s trade union, describe Williams’s firing as an “illegal” “attack on the union” and has brought the matter to the attention of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Williams himself told left-wing newspaper Socialist Worker: “They have sacked me because they want to weaken the union and intimidate the shop floor.”
Workers at the plant also say Linamar is breaking a promise made to the union when the plant was taken over to keep Visteon’s terms and conditions, particularly to establish a final pension scheme for workers who were part of the company before its 2000 spin-off from Ford.
Linamar has not given comment to the press on the dispute as of this writing.
Rallies in support of Williams, who is also running for European Parliament on the No2EU ticket, and of the union have drawn sizeable crowds, with about 90 at the most recent rally include three Members of the Welsh Assembly representing the ruling coalition of the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru as well as the Liberal Democrats, on May 17 outside the Visteon plant in Swansea.
Linamar Swansea has close ties with Visteon factories in Enfield, Belfast and Basildon. Workers at those three factories recently won a victory against Visteon by occupying their plants and locking management out when redundancies were announced in April.
