The New York Times
Thursday 20 December 2007
Nearly two weeks after FreshDirect let go of scores of immigrant workers, political leaders, labor organizers and other supporters of the workers rallied outside the company's warehouse and headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, this afternoon, accusing the company of ousting the workers to foil a coming unionization vote.
FreshDirect, which has witnessed a huge increase in business since its first delivery in 2002, has become extraordinarily popular, especially among busy Manhattan residents who consider home grocery delivery essential. Although the company's customers have tended toward the affluent - unlike, say, the working-class population that wants Pathmark to stay on the Lower East Side. Most of FreshDirect's warehouse workers are Latino; a sizable number of its drivers and delivery workers are African-American.
On Dec. 9, FreshDirect began forcing out dozens of employees at its warehouse, at 23-30 Borden Avenue. But how many employees were dismissed - and why - remain subjects of bitter dispute.
FreshDirect has cited a letter it received on Nov. 30 from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The letter warned FreshDirect that the agency had scheduled a Dec. 10 review of employment records to verify that employees are eligible to work in this country.
But two unions that are seeking to organize the roughly 900 warehouse workers - whose ranks have now been depleted - believe that FreshDirect actually sought the government review, as a means of disrupting a union election scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
On those two days, the warehouse workers are scheduled to choose whether to form a union, and if so, whether to join Local 805 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters or Local 348 of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Local 805 has been trying to unionize the warehouse workers since the summer; Local 348 won an election last year to represent about 500 drivers and other workers who deliver the food, and now wants to add the warehouse workers.
The clash between the two unions and the dismissal of the many workers have created a sense of panic and turmoil at FreshDirect, as Tom Robbins of The Village Voice reported this week.
"There's an atmosphere of fear and terror that's been created by the employer during this voting process," Jose Merced, the recording secretary and organizing director at Local 348, which organized today's rally, said in a phone interview today. "That's exactly what the company was looking to accomplish."
Two City Council members from Queens, Hiram Monserrate and John C. Liu, both Democrats, attended the rally, as did several clergy members and members of the New Sanctuary Movement, which seeks to protect illegal immigrants from persecution.
Local 805 did not take part in the rally; its leaders have clashed with Local 348 repeatedly. "They called it on their own, without us," said Sandy Pope, president of Local 805, noting that the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council is holding a press conference at 11 a.m. Friday at City Hall to address the FreshDirect issues. The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, and the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., are scheduled to attend.
For today, at least, the unions have refrained from attacking each other.
"Today's rally is not about UFCW or the Teamsters," Mr. Merced said. "It's about working families - 300 of them that won't have a Christmas, that are facing homelessness, while FreshDirect continues to make a profit off minority workers."
A spokeswoman for FreshDirect declined to comment on today's rally, but in the past, FreshDirect officials have maintained that they are not anti-union. They have also said that the company, which is privately held, has yet to turn a profit, a claim Mr. Merced said he does not believe.
Mr. Merced said that more than 50 employees gathered at St. Jacobus Lutheran Church in Woodside on Wednesday evening to try to figure out their alternatives.
Mr. Merced said he was certain that the timing of the immigration review, coming weeks before the union vote, was not a mere coincidence. "There are no coincidences in life," he said.
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