ICE Chills Union Organizing at FreshDirect

Cross posted from DailyKos.

The U.S. has a long history of using its forces and laws to put down Labor. In the late 1800s Pinkerton agents, paid by the DOJ, became famous for infiltrating the Molly Maguires. In the early 1900s, state militias and local police were used to break strikes by breaking heads.

Today, the criminal immigrant isn't an Irish miner; it's a Mexican warehouse worker, meatpacker or hotel maid. And today's Pinkertons are ICE agents working outside their own rules and the rule of law to coddle exploiters and criminalize the exploited.

The latest incident is occurring in Long Island City, Queens, where the Teamsters of Local 805 are working to organize nearly 900 warehouse workers at a FreshDirect warehouse.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Fresh Direct to stop threatening its workers.

Strangely, the company wasn't worried about its workers' immigration status as long as the workers didn't complain about their $7.60 per hour wage and minimal benefits. Some of the immigrant employees had worked for the companay for as many as five years. But as soon as those same workers started signing Teamster cards over the summer, things heated up.

First, the company distributed anti-union fliers (pdf).

In August and September two pro-union workers were fired.

The Teamsters filed an NLRB complaint, held a rally outside the warehouse and soon thereafter filed for an NLRA election, which is to be held December 22-23.

So here comes ICE to FreshDirect's rescue.

On November 30, the company was notified that it would be undergoing an audit of its employment records. But the company waited until Sunday and Monday to tell the workers "that Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to inspect the records of every employee and asked them to update their information and provide documents, like Social Security cards, to prove employment eligibility," the New York Times reports.

At least 40 warehouse workers who could not produce proof that they were authorized to work in the United States quit or were suspended.

The move by ICE is in direct opposition to an Oct. 10 injunction by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer that blocked the Department of Homeland Security's plan to use Social Security "no-match" letters to target firms that hire illegal workers.

And it violates ICE operational guidelines to stay out of labor disputes.

OI 287.3a states:

Whenever information received from any source creates a suspicion that an INS enforcement action might involve the Service in a labor dispute, a reasonable attempt should be made by Service enforcement officers to determine whether a labor dispute is in progress.

... Generally there is no prohibition for enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act, even when there may be a labor dispute in progress. However, where it appears that information may have been provided in order to interfere with or to retaliate against employees for exercising their rights, no action should be taken on this information without the review of the District Counsel and approval of the Assistant District Director for Investigations or an Assistant Chief Patrol Agent.

Now of course ICE and FreshDirect are both denying that FreshDirect brought this investigation upon itself. But come on. Either ICE can't use a search engine, which means it must be even more incompetent than FEMA, or it is willingly serving as FreshDirect's hired goons.

And this is far from an isolated incident. ICE was much more forceful when it rounded up nearly 1,300 Swift employees one year ago. They also arrested several Smithfield meatpackers in North Carolina. And the Woodfin Suites hotel in San Francisco used a no-match threat to stomp out a living wage fight there.

In each of these cases, the workers either lost their jobs or were arrested. Nothing happened to the employers, who under the law could face criminal prosecution or fines.

Instead, mothers and fathers of U.S.-born children are deported. Wives and husbands, sisters and brothers are arrested for doing nothing more than showing up to work.

The ICE web site describes its Workforce Enforcement Unit's mission as:

...Enforcement activities intended to mitigate the risk of terrorist attacks posed by unauthorized workers employed in secure areas of our nation's critical infrastructure. In order to fulfill this mission, ICE special agents apply risk assessment principles to their critical infrastructure and worksite enforcement cases in order to maximize the impact of our limited resources against the most significant threats and violators.

Though worksite enforcement efforts are focused on investigations related to critical infrastructure and national security, these efforts and resources are also extended to other places of employment. Unauthorized workers employed at sensitive sites and critical infrastructure facilities—such as airports, seaports, nuclear plants, chemical plants and defense facilities—pose serious homeland security threats.

I fail to see the threat posed by these warehouse workers.

There's no question that immigration is a difficult issue. The Teamsters certainly do not endorse unfettered hiring of undocumented workers. That drives wages down and continues this system of fear and intimidation.

Companies, like FreshDirect, that turn a blind eye to immigration status and hire desperate workers at depressed wages and then use threats of deportation to keep those workers in their place, are no better than the industrialists who throughout our history exploited the Irish, Italians, Slavs, Jews, Chinese and Blacks -- our grandmothers and grandfathers.

And as long as ICE and the Department of Homeland Security play along, they are no better than the head busting thugs who did their bidding.

The bottom line is all workers, regardless of their immigration status, should be free to exercise the basic human right to form a union.

To add insult to injury, the latest word from New York is that Fresh Direct is holding the workers' final paychecks hostage. When some workers called up to inquire about their checks, they were told they had to come down to the office and sign for them personally. "But," the voice on the phone told them, "Immigration is here."

Act Now: Tell Fresh Direct to stop threatening its workers.

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