Advocates Rally To Help Bakery Workers Facing ICE Threat

New York's Tom Cat Bakery informed their employees that they have 10 days to provide documentation to prove they can legally work in the U.S.



Mar 24, 2017 at 5:56 PM ET
A workers rights organization and an employee from a bakery in Queens, New York, launched a fundraising campaign on Friday to provide relief for workers allegedly targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On March 15, Tom Cat Bakery informed their employees in a letter that they have 10 days to provide documentation to prove they can work legally, due to an audit from the Department of Homeland Security.

randworkers‏ @brandworkers
"I've been working for @TomCatBakery for 10 years.
We were called to the office & told we'd be fired in a few
days if we didn't show papers"


Tom Cat employee Osias Davila, and Brandworkers, a non-profit organization that supports workers in the food industry, put the fundraising campaign together after two days of fighting back with a march and a press conference. They will continue to fight, the fundraising organizers said on the GoFundMe page. However, they are seeking to raise a total of $77,500, in order to cover one month’s salary for the 31 workers who could be fired “should termination come to bear.” The $2,500 for each worker “will offer them the small comfort of having one month to seek out new employment,” they write in the campaign page.

The letters sent to employees stated that if they did not provide proper documentation within 10 days, “you are considered by the Homeland Security Investigations to be unauthorized to work in the United States,” according to the local reports. Tom Cat Bakery has been operating since 1987 and spans a full block in Queens. It delivers over 400 types of bread and sweets to a 150-mile radius every day.

The workers, some of whom have been employed at Tom Cat Bakery for over a decade, picketed in front of the bakery on Wednesday. “After hearing this news, we’ve been devastated because we’ve given so many years of our lives to the company, and we have been overwhelmed not knowing what to do,” one of the employees said. “We’re going to continue to fight until we reach our objective.” Working Families Party, a workers rights group, filmed the protest.

“We reject the racist policies of Donald Trump’s ICE, which have targetted decent, hardworking New Yorkers, who have done nothing but contribute to this community, and contribute to this economy,” New York City Councilman Mark Levine said at the protest. “There is no justification for the targeting of these workers. The targeting of these workers by ICE runs contrary to our values as New Yorkers, contrary to our values as Americans, and contrary to our interests, and we will fight this with everything we have.”

Levine demanded that Tom Cat Bakery support their employees during these uncertain times, and offer them sponsorship so that they can stay in the country “without this horrible, horrible threat standing over their head.”

http://www.vocativ.com/414920/advoca...y-workers-ice/