Thread: CA - Mi Pueblo supermarket chain chief criticized for using E-Verify

By Matt O'Brien
Bay Area News Group
Posted: 09/07/2012 03:44:49 PM PDT
marinij.com

His rags-to-riches immigrant journey and good business sense crowned Juvenal Chavez the king of Latino supermarkets in the Bay Area — and brought praise for revitalizing San Rafael's Canal neighborhood — but now the CEO is fighting a harsh attack on the reputation of his 21-store Mi Pueblo Foods grocery chain.

Mi Pueblo stunned some of its more than 3,000 employees last month when it told them it had joined E-Verify, a Department of Homeland Security program that screens the immigration status of new hires.

Now, with union activists accusing Chavez of betraying his own undocumented immigrant roots and threatening a consumer boycott if he doesn't pull out of E-Verify by October, the entrepreneur is fighting back in a war of words against the union and political opposition.

A protest outside the chain's San Jose headquarters on Thursday was "part of an ongoing campaign against Mi Pueblo (to) damage our good name," said spokeswoman Perla Rodriguez, who accused labor unions of an underhanded campaign to distort the company's record of advocacy for the Bay Area's Latino community.

In the years since he founded the company in 1991 on San Jose's east side, Chavez has been lauded by city leaders around the Bay Area for buying up vacant or rundown big-box supermarkets and transforming them into colorful, festive Latin American food markets.

He opened the San Rafael store in a former Circuit City on Bellam Boulevard in March 2010 to much fanfare, and Mayor Al Boro highlighted the store's opening in his State of the City address the next month.

The San Rafael market, which employs about 170 people, received the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Marin's Outstanding Business Diversity Award in 2010, and Chavez received Bank of Marin's Spirit of Marin Award in 2011. Last year Chavez also appeared with Boro at a bilingual entrepreneur fair hosted by the Canal Alliance.

But now Chavez is confronting one of his biggest public-relations challenges since he founded the company.

Among Mi Pueblo's most prominent critics regarding E-Verify is Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, who said in December that armed security guards escorted him from a San Jose store when he paid a visit after hearing complaints about work conditions. The company had said the visit by Cortese, a likely 2014 candidate for mayor of San Jose, was a union-organized "media stunt."

Now, the E-Verify controversy is fueling the ongoing disputes. Labor organizers trying to unionize Latino and Asian ethnic markets across the state are attacking Chavez as a hypocrite, citing past media reports in which he revealed he came to the United States illegally from Mexico as a young man in the 1980s.

"He comes here undocumented and now he's going after undocumented workers," said Mike Henneberry of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5. "I think that's a little hypocritical. If it's not hypocritical, it's a little ironic."

Rodriguez countered that Chavez is a longtime U.S. citizen and a community advocate who supports fixing the "broken" immigration system and has funded scholarships for undocumented students. She said she didn't know how he arrived to the country. That question, she said, is "very personal and it is not pertinent to operation of the company." Chavez declined repeated requests for comment.

After arriving to the United States in the 1980s and working as a janitor at Stanford University, Juvenal Chavez worked alongside his brother David Chavez, who founded Redwood City's Chavez Meat Market in 1984, expanded into Menlo Park in 1993 and now runs the eight-store Chavez Supermarket chain.

Soon, however, Juvenal Chavez's own company began to eclipse his brother's business, and it's now an empire that stretches from Vallejo to Salinas and the Central Valley. It has been fighting for several years with a union that accuses it of mistreating workers.

For now, many of the popular chain's loyal customers remain unaware of the controversy.

"That's kind of unexpected for a store like this," said Jonathan Rodriguez, 18, as he helped his grandmother on Thursday stuff grocery bags into her trunk at the Mi Pueblo store in central Hayward. "I don't think that's right. They are a Mexican food center and they should be helping their community."

Another regular customer, Rafael Nuñez, said the "law is the law" and Mi Pueblo is doing what it needs to do.

"In any country you go to, the law says you need papers to work," said Nuñez as he went searching for a fresh mango with his young grandson.

Mi Pueblo signed up for E-Verify on Aug. 14, joining more than 30,400 California employers and 109,205 work sites across the state that belong to the expanding work-verification network, according to Sharon Rummery, spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The San Jose-based grocer is also among a growing number of supermarkets in the program.

Pleasanton-based Safeway uses E-Verify, but only in Arizona, where the state requires its use. Modesto-based Save Mart, which includes the Lucky store brand, also uses E-Verify to screen workers, as do Berkeley-based Grocery Outlet and Berkeley Bowl and several Latino grocery chains such as Vallarta Supermarkets and El Super, both based in Los Angeles County, according to the federal government's list of all E-Verify employers.

Mi Pueblo joined upon the federal government's recommendation, said spokeswoman Perla Rodriguez, who said it was a tough decision for company executives to make.

"This is something many Hispanic grocery stores" have to deal with, she said.

Mi Pueblo supermarket chain chief criticized for using E-Verify - Marin Independent Journal

Sunday, 16 September 2012 13:59
Written by R. Cort Kirkwood
The New American

An illegal alien who became a citizen and multi-millionaire grocery tycoon is in trouble with “activists” because he is using the federal E-Verify program to check whether prospective employees are illegal aliens.

Juvenal Chavez, who own the Mi Pueblo grocery chain in California headquartered in San Jose, faces protests because, “activists” say, he has betrayed his “undocumented roots,” the San Jose Mercury News recently reported.

They, apparently, want the Mexican Hortaio Alger to ignore the law and permit illegal aliens to work.

Disloyal Mexican?

According to the News, “Mi Pueblo stunned some of its more than 3,000 employees last month when it told them it had joined E-Verify, a Department of Homeland Security program that screens the immigration status of new hires. ...”

Mi Pueblo signed up for E-Verify on Aug. 14, joining more than 30,400 California employers and 109,205 work sites across the state that belong to the expanding work-verification network, according to Sharon Rummery, spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The San Jose-based grocer is also among a growing number of supermarkets in the program.…

Mi Pueblo joined upon the federal government's recommendation, said spokeswoman Perla Rodriguez, who said it was a tough decision for company executives to make.

"This is something many Hispanic grocery stores" have to deal with, she said.

Yes, it is, because the illegal immigration problem is largely a problem from Mexico. Yet the question is whether the “activists” protesting Chavez’ move to protect the integrity of his business is related to disloyalty to his illegal countrymen or whether it’s a union organizing stunt.

According to the newspaper, “armed security” booted a county supervisor from the store in what the company called a “media stunt,” after he showed up to investigate “complaints about working conditions.” It appears that union goons, the newspaper reported, are pushing the protests against the entrepreneur. They are “accusing Chavez of betraying his own undocumented immigrant roots and threatening a consumer boycott if he doesn't pull out of E-Verify by October.” So Chavez “is fighting back in a war of words against the union and political opposition.”

The newspaper reported that “[l]abor organizers trying to unionize Latino and Asian ethnic markets across the state are attacking Chavez as a hypocrite, citing past media reports in which he revealed he came to the United States illegally from Mexico as a young man in the 1980s.”

“He comes here undocumented and now he’s going after undocumented workers,” said Mike Henneberry of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5. “I think that’s a little hypocritical. If it's not hypocritical, it’s a little ironic.”

And the newspaper found the boilerplate critic, seemingly unrelated to the union, to speak against Chavez:

“That’s kind of unexpected for a store like this,” said Jonathan Rodriguez, 18, as he helped his grandmother on Thursday stuff grocery bags into her trunk at the Mi Pueblo store in central Hayward. “I don't think that’s right. They are a Mexican food center and they should be helping their community.”

Immigrant Success Story

Mi Pueblo says critics are trying to ruin the company’s reputation, which is good one for a good reason. Chavez made it the hard way.

According to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, the former high school teacher landed in the United States in 1984 with nothing. He and his wife, Marie Helena, came here and worked their fingers to the bone. She was a housekeeper; he a bartender. He even had a job washing test tubes in a lab at Stanford University.

But that line of work didn’t last long. He joined his brother’s taqueria, and after that, struck out on his own. Now, he runs a $300-million-a-year, 21-store empire built on service, not low prices.

“I did not build my success on 'cheaper' prices,” he told the business journal in 2006. He recalled:

I could not compete on that. But, I could compete by offering shoppers a better experience. That means better produce, it means understanding your demographic. For Latino families, preparing the meal is so important. They go to a specific part of the city, searching for the best meat and, then to the opposite end of the city, to a farmer's market to buy the best chili. I understood that and tried to create a one-stop shop for them.

Coming to Mi Pueblo to buy products is second for them. The primary thing, it’s identification. Shoppers identify through Mi Pueblo by the language, the comfortable faces, the sense of nostalgia ... the sense of history.

Chavez gives back to his community. He runs an annual food drive for the poor, raises nearly $300,000 annually for college scholarhips and also conducts an annual fundraising drive for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Older folks will remember that St. Jude’s was founded by the late comedian/actor, Danny Thomas, a devout Catholic.

But alas, the “activists” think Chavez has betrayed those who openly and defiantly break the law.

At least one of Chavez’s customers agrees with his using E-verify: The “law is the law,” Rafael Nuñez told the Mercury News. “In any country you go to, the law says you need papers to work.”

Unions, Protesters, Attack Grocery Entrepreneur

First article added to the Homepage
http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=9...using-E-Verify

They are a Mexican food center and they should be helping their community."

Then they should be operating in Mexico, but they are not and they have to follow the laws as a business even though Mexcans don't. JMO

At least one of Chavez’s customers agrees with his using E-verify: The “law is the law,” Rafael Nuñez told the Mercury News. “In any country you go to, the law says you need papers to work.”

So simple to understand.