Reports of firings in wake of march
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 9513.story
Reports of firings in wake of march
Group to file unfair labor practice charge
By Barbara Rose, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Stephen Franklin and Antonio Olivo contributed to this story
May 4, 2006
Worker advocates reported scattered firings around the country related to Monday's marches that drew hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, including an estimated 400,000 in downtown Chicago.
"By far the vast majority of employers respected workers' right to take the day off, but there some instances of workers getting fired," Tim Bell, executive director of the Chicago Workers' Collaborative, said Wednesday.
The group is a member of the ad hoc National Workers Defense Committee, which is coordinating a response with legal help from the Service Employees International Union. The group said it is preparing to file a single national unfair labor practice charge against employers who violated workers' rights.
Such demonstrations are largely protected by the National Labor Relations Act, and employers are not allowed to impose penalties for absences for rallies that they don't impose for other types of absences.
Employment attorneys said many clients called in the days leading up to the demonstration asking how to handle requests for time off.
"From what we've heard, everything seemed to go down relatively well," Chicago attorney Barry Hartstein at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP said.
"The most striking thing really is how few workers were fired as a result of the May 1 events," Martin Unzueta, the Workers' Collaborative's lead organizer, said in statement Wednesday.
Among the reported firings was that of Celedonio Martinez, a worker at Electri-Flex Inc. in suburban Roselle.
He said he notified his bosses April 26 of his intention to miss work for the march, and told them again just before his shift started Monday.
He said his bosses tried to talk him out of going, saying immigration authorities would deport participants. When he told them he was a legal resident, they asked him why he would want to participate in a march for undocumented workers.
"To support the people," he replied.
Electri-flex Chief Executive Jason Kinander disputes that account, saying Martinez was fired for failing to follow the company's absence policy.
"We came to our employees before the march and said, `If you want to march, that's fine but you have to put in for vacation,'" he said. "There was no one who said to us, `I plan on marching in unity with my neighbors or my family.'"
He said Martinez did not call the day he didn't come to work.
"I support the cause they're marching for," Kinander said. "[But] I send a bad message to my workforce if someone does not follow protocol. I would be discriminating against the people I've released in the past [for not calling in absences] and I would be sending the wrong message."
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berose@tribune.com
