Department 400 - Manufacture and General Production

Washington, DC- Immigrant workers organizing for justice at a Brooklyn-based producer and distributor of kosher food products have taken a big step forward in their campaign and achieved a legal victory for workers around the country. Using discriminatory allegations about workers' immigration status, Flaum Appetizing has been resisting compliance with a 2009 trial decision that found the company illegally fired employees who came together seeking dignified working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board holding precludes Flaum from continuing to raise baseless immigration status defenses against at least eleven of the workers, and potentially as many as fifteen. By prohibiting employers from engaging in discriminatory 'fishing expeditions' against immigrants or perceived immigrants, the Board clarified important procedural safeguards in cases governed by the landmark anti-immigrant Supreme Court case, Hoffman Plastic.

"Companies that discriminate and undermine labor rights drive down economic standards for every working person, native-born and immigrant alike," said Daniel Gross, the director of non-profit organization Brandworkers, which, along with the Industrial Workers of the World labor union is campaigning for justice at Flaum as part of the Focus on the Food Chain campaign. "Worker organizing helps create the type of quality jobs that support a dynamic economy and healthy communities. The Labor Board's decision is an important step toward ensuring that Flaum and companies like it will not escape accountability through unfounded and discriminatory inquiries into immigration status."

New York grocery stores and restaurants rely on an industrial corridor of food processing factories and distribution warehouses like Flaum that hold down wages and safety standards by exploiting recent immigrant workers. Wage theft, discrimination, and abuse is common in the sector and efforts for change are almost always met with determined and unlawful retaliation. Overcoming these challenges, the Flaum workers are waging a powerful campaign to bring the company into compliance with fundamental workplace protections. The workers have shared their story and persuaded over 120 of NYC's most prominent supermarket locations to discontinue selling Flaum products, including it's Sonny & Joe's hummus, until the company comports with the rule of law. The global kosher cheese giant Tnuva refused to renew its distribution contract with Flaum after spirited worker campaigning and support from Jewish organizations including Uri L'Tzedek, the Orthodox social  justice organization.

"We're glad Flaum didn't get away with avoiding its responsibilities under the law," said Maria Corona, one of the victorious workers and a Focus on the Food Chain member. "There's power in coming together with your co-workers and we are well on our way to winning the justice we have been seeking."

The NLRB's Office of the General Counsel is prosecuting the case against Flaum. The Flaum workers are represented by Eisner & Mirer, a New York labor & employment law firm.

Focus on the Food Chain promotes sustainable jobs and a thriving local food industry in the City of New York. Through organizing, grassroots advocacy, and legal action, the campaign challenges and overcomes unlawful conditions in food processing and distribution warehouses. The Focus campaign is a collaboration of non-profit organization Brandworkers and the NYC Industrial Workers of the World labor union.

Dear Focus Friends,

Good morning, I hope you're well. I wanted to update you with breaking news which I hope you'll share.

In a bombshell legal brief filed yesterday, Flaum Appetizing's attorney,  Jeffery Meyer of the firm Kaufman Dolowich Voluck & Gonzo LLP, has been accused of extremely serious ethical violations in connection with an attempt to trick immigrant workers at Flaum into signing away their right to the wages they worked for.

The prominent blog Failed Messiah, which published the brief in full, calls the revelation, "...a serious ethical violation that could (and probably should) lead to censure and perhaps disbarment." The brief makes for very troubling reading and you can access it in full at http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/09/flaum-appetizing-tries-to-cheat-workers-again-678.html.

This development provides further evidence of the ruthless and illegal misconduct used by Flaum and its representatives to undermine the effort  of workers to protect their basic employment rights. In 2009, a judge found that Flaum illegally fired en masse seventeen of its employees for  engaging in protected activity. All appeals are exhausted and the conclusion that Flaum violated federal law cannot be changed. However, Flaum is seeking to avoid compliance with that final decision by raising  discriminatory allegations about immigration status.

By FW Zachary M.- September 9th, 2011

A new organizing campaign is in full swing at a sub-sandwich shop. No, it’s not Jimmy Johns, but a local Kansas City deli and pizzeria. The campaign, initiated by a brand new member in a brand new branch, started about four months ago when a worker joined the Wobblies and then realized that the IWW is the perfect platform for making changes at the oppressive restaurant he works at. I am that worker, and this is the beginning of our ongoing struggle to take over our workplace.

I started working at the shop about two years ago but only started to organize after becoming a Wobblie in April. After a mixture of stabbing in the dark, taking advice from the group that would later become the Greater Kansas City Branch, attending a wonderfully helpful meeting with some Wobblies from the Starbucks Union in Omaha in May, and then receiving an exceptional Organizer Training in June, some real organizing started to take place. Energized and educated by the Organizer Training, I started to rally my co-workers to defend each other at work. These activities lead to our first meetings where we committed to solidarity in the workplace and began to figure out the concrete problems at our shop. After a few more weeks of organizing and trying to establish some concrete ground from which to move forward, management decided to rearrange the structure of the store and started clamping down; enforcing new and old policies alike. This new enforcement of the rules led to understaffing as workers were fired or left due to frustration over harassment in the workplace. Management refused to replace these workers and then expected the few remaining workers to pick up the slack.

Then, at the beginning of August, things at our workplace started to heat up. Corporate management decided that they want to open more locations so they need a whole new set of rules and a rigid cost cutting strategy to squeeze every last penny out of every store. To do this they are using our location as a guinea pig and transferred in a management loyal worker who has worked for the company on and off for the last 20 years. This person, whom we refer to as the Corporate Manager (CM), for lack of a better term, is not a manager but is in charge of enforcing the new rules and cutting costs. During this transition, the assistant manager was fired due to rumors that he was taking home extra food.

The weekend after the firing, I was away on vacation, so the store was more understaffed than usual because the precedent is that no one is called in to cover shifts no matter how much notice is given that a worker will be off. On Saturday there were only two line cooks, Fellow Worker Charlie and another worker. The other line cook was sent out on a catering delivery. Our store never does catering on Saturday and the worker who was sent out had never done catering before. This left FW Charlie alone to do the work of what normally is done by three workers. The store starts to get busy with the lunch rush, so FW Charlie starts running back and forth between the lines making sandwiches and running them down to our expo line which is being worked by our store manager. FW Charlie forgot to write the name of a sandwich on the wrapper (writing the names on the wrappers is a new, superfluous policy being enforced as one of the many brand new “corporate” rules because the manager refuses to read the tickets we give him with the sandwiches). The manager picks up the sandwich and yells “WRITE THE NAME ON THE GOD DAMN SANDWICH!” and throws the sandwich at FW Charlie. Not surprisingly this upsets FW Charlie. He calmly takes off his hat and apron, clocks-out, and leaves without saying a word.