Fired for Working
New America Media, News Report, David Bacon, Posted: Jun 17, 2009
VERNON, Calif. -- On May 31, 254 people were fired in the southeast Los Angeles industrial enclave of Vernon. Their crime? According to Overhill Farms, their employer, they had bad Social Security numbers. Behind this accusation is the unspoken assumption that the workers' numbers are no good because they have no legal immigration status.
This mass termination is the largest in many years, the first of its scale under the Obama administration. Workplace enforcement is a keystone of the administration's immigration policy, as it was under George Bush. The Overhill Farms firings are a window into a future in which this kind of immigration enforcement becomes widespread in workplaces across the country.
Overhill Farms, with more than 800 employees, was audited by the Internal Revenue Service earlier this year. According to John Grant, packinghouse division director for Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, “They found discrepancies in many Social Security numbers. Overhill then sent a letter on April 6 to 254 people, giving them 30 days to reconcile their numbers with Social Security. They are all members of our union.”
After the workers got the letters, they organized a protest in front of the plant on May 1. On May 2 the company stopped the lines. According to worker Isela Hernandez, “They told us there would be no work until they called us to come back.” For 254 people, that call never came. The company then terminated their employment.
The fired employees contacted the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, a Los Angeles immigrant rights organization. Hermandad president Nativo Lopez helped them mount demonstrations that have taken place in front of the factory ever since.
Alex Auerbach, spokesperson for Overhill Farms, said, “The company was required by federal law to terminate these employees because they had invalid social security numbers.” Auerbach says the company “did not have any role in selecting which employees were subject to IRS action. Overhill Farms had no role in initiating this action, and certainly did not benefit from it.”
But Grant says the union never saw any IRS letter. “We've never heard of the IRS demanding the termination of a worker. The company doesn't have to terminate these people. No document we know of says they do.”
In addition, a few of the workers actually had shown the company valid Social Security cards. A year ago, Lucia Vasquez changed her name and Social Security number when she regularized her immigration status, and the company began paying her in the new name and number. Nevertheless, she got a termination letter too. When she pointed out the change to the human resources manager, she was told she was fired anyway.
Workers say the company is replacing the fired employees, some of whom have worked as many as 20 years in the plant, with lower-paid, non-union employees with no benefits. The company denies this charge, although one recently hired worker, who asked not to be identified because he still works there, said, “They call me a part timer, but I have no benefits -- no vacation, medical plan or anything. I've been working 45 to 50 hours a week.”
Whether or not immigration status is a pretext for terminations motivated by economic gain, however, the firings highlight a larger question of immigration policy. “These workers have not only done nothing wrong, they've spent years making the company rich,” Nativo Lopez emphasizes. “An immigration policy that says these workers have no right to work and feed their families is wrong and should be changed.”
However, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, passed in 1986, says employers may not hire people who are “not authorized” to work in the United States. In effect, it makes it a crime for undocumented workers to work at all.
In 2007 the Bush administration proposed a regulation that would have forced employers to fire any worker using a Social Security number that doesn't match the SSA database. Faced with the potential termination of millions of workers, including union members, the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center won a federal court injunction stopping the proposed regulation from taking effect. That injunction still stands. Former President Bush also created a database called E-Verify, to check the immigration status of any existing or prospective employee. The main source of information for E-Verify comes from Social Security numbers.
Many expected the incoming Obama administration to drop Bush’s “no-match” rule and put E-Verify on hold. Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that DHS will work “to maintain a legal workforce through training and employee verification tools like E-Verify.” And the White House Web site says President Obama “will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by preventing employers from hiring undocumented workers.”
When Overhill Farms says it is firing 254 employees for bad Social Security numbers, it is acting in accordance with this policy. Unions and immigrant rights groups around the country now have to choose whether or not to defend the undocumented workers the policy targets.
Some Washington, D.C. immigration lobbying groups, however, have decided to support sanctions enforcement. Reform Immigration for America, for instance, says, “Any employment verification system should determine employment authorization accurately and efficiently.”
In 1999 the AFL-CIO called for the repeal of sanctions because they were being used against workers who were trying to organize and improve conditions. But a new joint statement by the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win labor federation supports a “secure and effective worker authorization mechanism.”
At Overhill Farms, the 254 fired workers paid union dues for many years. UFCW 770 filed a grievance against the firings. And Grant agrees that sanctions are a bad idea. “The companies exploit workers, and then claim that sanctions require them to fire them when it's convenient. Firings like the ones at Overhill are a clear example of what's wrong.”
But labor support in Washington for work authorization undermines this position, and raises a difficult question. How can unions fight to defend people like the women at Overhill, and at the same time agree that people without authorization shouldn't be working?
And if existing unions don't defend those workers, will they try to form or find unions who will? The Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana last year took the initial steps to form such a union, to begin organizing workers on a community basis. It opposes employer sanctions and advocates organizing workers to resist them.
“When I look around Vernon,” Lopez says, “all I see are other factories like Overhill, filled with immigrant workers in the same abysmal conditions. If they start firing people and we fight to defend them, we can organize them.”
Anger over the firings would certainly fuel such an effort.
“The company treats us like criminals,” Bohemia Agustiano charges. “I worked there for 18 years. Was I a criminal when I was working all those years?”
Photo by Fred Zermeno, Eastern Group Publications
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A Year Later, Iowa Raid Haunts Immigrants
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User Comments
Logan3 on Jul 01, 2009 at 23:31:25 said:
Bad social security numbers. Riiiiight. Got it.
panola on Jun 27, 2009 at 07:09:58 said:
Every illegal alien working in construction, manufacturing, service industries, etc. is using a fraudulent SSN and filed a fraudulent I-9, W-4, etc. In other words 7-8 million illegal aliens are committing ID fraud, according to the SSA.
They may be using your SSN or your child's SSN. So what harm does that do??? The IRS will come looking for you asking why you are filing two tax returns or they will want to know why you didn't report all the income you made. Don't forget that your income will now include the illegal aliens earnings, so you will be responsible for paying any taxes he owes. Many illegals file tax returns for the sole purpose of claiming Earned Income Credit (EIC), so you can expect the IRS to question that as well. And don't forget to check your credit report to see how much other damage they've done to you there.
Those who come here illegally, steal our IDs and ignore our laws have already demonstrated they lack the honesty and decency to ever become American citizens.
Alexander Auerbach on Jun 17, 2009 at 19:50:17 said:
I am the spokesperson for Overhill Farms. Contrary to the remark attributed to John Grant, the 260 (not 254) affected workers were given 60 days to contact the IRS (not Social Security) in response to the IRS' report that the workers' Social Security numbers were fictitious. None were able to do so.
Replacement workers were hired initially as part-timers. Overhill Farms pays part-timers slightly MORE per hour than full-time employees, because they do not get full company benefits. Part-timers are also members of the Union. There is no "economic gain" to the company from using part-time employees, nor indeed from the termination itself.
The IRS, not the company, initiated this action. The company consulted three law firms and the Union while seeking a legal way to retain these employees, but could find none.
Section 7202 of the IRS Code says a company faces five years in prison and fines of $10,000 per employee for submitting payroll tax information (including Social Security numbers) which is false. For Overhill Farms, that would have meant possible fines of $2.6 million, plus imprisonment.
Under Sections 7205 and 7206 of the IRS Code, the employees themselves would face a year in prison and $100,000 in fines for continuing to use false Social Security numbers.
Overhill Farms employees do not work in "abysmal conditions." They are protected by a Union contract, a Union-negotiated wage, paid sick leave, paid vacations, COMPANY-PAID health insurance after six months for full-time employees, and company-paid health insurance for the employee's entire family after four years on the job.
Virtually all of the employees hired as part-timers will this month move to full-time status, with all of these benefits.
Overhill Farms did not initiate these events, did not select which workers were affected, and explored every legal option to seek an alternative to terminating these valued, hardworking employees, but found none.
Brittanicus on Jun 17, 2009 at 13:06:25 said:
Obama Committee Votes to Give Stimulus Jobs to Illegal immigrants.
-->The American people are wondering if the Obama administration is holding back E-Verify, as a pawn in an immigration game of chess. Is this one of their political ploys to force through another Amnesty like in 1986, then I guess--THE PEOPLE--will have no say in their future? But with hundreds of pro-sovereignty groups, it’s—NOT--going to be an easy task? E-Verify which has been compromised over and over again, to satisfy the US Chamber of commerce, some unions, mainly the Catholic church, ACLU and organizations that is anti-American such as La Raza. E-verify as it is upgraded would start the rollback of illegal immigration in the workplace, removing the cheap labor dilemma.
Worried about their bountiful profits from cheap labor the business community, have used any means possible to demonize this tool. They have afforded many errors to its use, complaining that thousands of people have been ejected from jobs. Yet they have never informed the avid population, that errors can be resolved by stopping off at the local Social Security office. Only the illegal workers are not going to trespass in this government agency. You would think with the massive public outcry about using E-Verify, politicians would be weary of voters in the next re-election. But--NO--35 members voted not to identify all employees and new hires through the E-Verify.
A relative of mine in a Los Angeles neighborhood, told me that the large franchise "El Pollo Loco" was displaying a sign that they had adopted E-verify to identify who they were hiring? However there are hundreds of thousands of predatory businesses and contractors out there employing illegal foreign nationals instead of US workers, to satisfy the profit margins of free traders.
Three separate E-Verify amendments failed to pass through the House Appropriations Committee earlier today. Two amendments were introduced by Rep. Jack Kingston and another by Rep. Ken Calvert. E-Verify should be a permanent tool and everybody on the payroll must be identified as legal. With a dark cloud of second AMNESTY looming very soon, it can only be foiled by the American people. Only your frustrated voices erupting in Washington will freeze another Blanket Amnesty.
The costs will be astronomical to the American taxpayer, but not to the corporate world. Say--YES--to e-verify! Say--NO--to any AMNESTY. Call your Senator or Congressman. Digest more of the facts and unbiased truth at NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH, CAPSWEB, and ALIPAC. At AMERICANPATROL, learn about the massive upsurge on illegal alien criminal activity.