I’ve shopped at B&H Photo Video for nearly two decades. It’s the photography and electronics superstore in New York City; the camera equivalent of Nordstrom / Disney World. My last two Nikon digital cameras came from B&H, as did several of my lenses and most of my film.
Which makes the latest news from this store extremely sad.
I’ve seen recent reports, including this one from the New York Times, in which B&H’s warehouse employees – the ones who work at B&H’s Brooklyn Navy Yard and Bushwick facilities – work under sweatshop conditions. Many employees claimed to work 12 to 14 hours a day in cramped, dusty conditions with limited water or bathroom breaks. The dust and airborne particles caused nosebleeds and other health conditions. Emergency exists were blocked; and even during a recent nearby fire at one of the locations, employees had to pass through a metal detector just to escape the building.
The workforce are currently considering their options, and one of those options is to organize with a labor union. Already members of the United Steelworkers and the Laundry Workers Center United have offered their support.
On October 11, 2015, B&H workers staged a protest.
Here’s another video, as provided by the Laundry Workers Center United.
There are several news reports of the oppressive working conditions at the warehouses, including these stories from the Jewish Daily Forward, Al-Jazeera America, and The Nation.
This is unacceptable. Nobody should work in these oppressive, unhealthy, rapacious conditions.
Understand this. I am not a fan of what I see from B&H Photo Video at this time. I believe that an employee should work reasonable hours for reasonable pay and receive reasonable benefits for their labor.
When I hear stories like this, where the workers are operating in dangerous, overbearing, sweatshop conditions… and now I’m hearing stories about management intimidating workers and coercing them to disavow unionization…
I will vote with my heart and with my wallet. I am a firm supporter of the right of workers to unionize for the goal of better and safer working conditions and a fair wage. So…
Effective immediately, until I hear that B&H Photo Video has accepted and will allow its dockworkers and warehouse employees to organize and join a union, and until I hear that working conditions at the Brooklyn warehouses have improved significantly…
I will no longer purchase my camera equipment or supplies, or any other products for that matter, from B&H Photo Video until these matters are satisfactorily resolved.
Trust me. I’ve already scouted other locations and companies; Adorama does mail-house business for camera equipment; and I can get film from Freestyle Photo, the Film Photography Podcast, Lomography.com, eBay, etc. B&H isn’t the only game in town.
This isn’t some grandstanding Norma Rae / Roger and Me moment. These workers just want equality and respect.
And in my heart, I cannot support an organization that doesn’t treat its workers with the same respect that any man or woman should receive.
I’ve signed an open letter at bhexposed.org showing my support for the warehouse workers, and I’ve added BHexposed to my blogroll. As a country, we’ve grown past those moments of sit-down strikes and wildcat strikes and scabs crossing picket lines. Or at least I hope we have. These actions against the B&H Photo Video warehouse employees shows that we have a long journey ahead.
Right now, B&H has lost a good, solid customer in me. And until they treat their warehouse workers with the respect and dignity a true working professional should receive…
If they don’t improve those working conditions satisfactorily, or if they don’t allow the workers to unionize…
Then B&H will never get my business back.
And certainly I may be a drop in the ocean in terms of B&H’s customer base…
But I know I’m not the only drop.
#BHexposed
Chuck The Writer 
Given that you seem to work for a newspaper, it is rather disappointing that you have done no independent fact checking for this article. The charges made against B&H are completely untrue. Here are actual facts left out of your article:
Fact: With regard to that fire, it was not in the warehouse, it was in the parking lot next door and it was the FDNY Fire Marshall who asked that workers be kept inside until the FDNY gave the all-clear (because it was safer inside). When the FDNY deemed it was safe to leave, gave that all-clear workers were allowed to leave.
Fact: OSHA has done multiple surprise inspections of the warehouse in recent months and found ZERO violations. Zero. Ask others who’ve had surprise OSHA inspections how likely it is to get zero violations.
Fact: The warehouse workers already get a great benefits package that includes health insurance, 491k with matching, 17 paid holidays s year, 3 weeks paid vacation a year, paid lunches and breaks, plus time and a half for overtime (which they are not required to work). It is NOT a sweatshop by any means.
Fact: most of the people at that protest were NOT B&H employees. At that protest, more a photo-op, there were (according to a union rep on the scene) “a couple of workers at the front” the rest had were just there to make the scene. But it was reported in Al Jazeera that hundreds of B&H workers were protesting (and others simply regurgitated that placed story without check the facts).
Fact: B&H has already stated that they recognize their workers right to organize if they choose to and they have done nothing to impede that in any way.
When you know the facts it becomes pretty obvious that there are other things at play here in this campaign against B&H. But here is another fact: B&H is an honest business and a valued part of the photography community, offering opportunities to countless individuals and organizations alike. It is nothing like the way the union advocates are painting it.
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What is your source for these facts? You can’t demand a fact-check of information sourced from reputable (if liberal-leaning) news sources and then present your own facts without backing them up. If you’re affiliated with B&H, say so.
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Given that your first sentence, in which you accuse Chuck of not getting facts right, is factually incorrect, do you actually expect to be taken seriously?
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ditto for me Chuck
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