Thread: Tom Cat Bakery Workers Fired After Homeland Security Audit (Not Deported)

Originally Posted by nomas

And what penalty is going to be leveled at Tom Cat? They are equally responsible. IMO they need to be charged with every crime that can be thought up. The probably made MILLIONS by having an illegal staff, now they need to pay the piper!

You're absolutely right. How can you have illegals working for you for 16 years and not know?

How do you know what JD2 knows and doesn't know? Are you JD2? How does JD2 know that Trump hasn't already deported them all?

Originally Posted by Judy

How do you know what JD2 knows and doesn't know? Are you JD2? How does JD2 know that Trump hasn't already deported them all?

Because none of them have even been arrested, yet. Someone would have reported it if they had. There would be protesters in the street.

Originally Posted by MW

You're absolutely right. How can you have illegals working for you for 16 years and not know?

The charges and fines will be announced when they are decided.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Because none of them have even been arrested, yet. Someone would have reported it if they had. There would be protesters in the street.

LOL! Not unless they want the same outcome. I don't know if they've been deported or not, but I know from several stories posted on ALIPAC that under certain situations, they don't have to be "arrested" per se, they're just taken into custody and zoomed out of here, while their lawyers are trying to find where they're "detained". Could be a lot of these workers were visa entries who violated their documents in which case they can just be deported immediately without a hearing or anything.

Originally Posted by Judy

LOL! Not unless they want the same outcome. I don't know if they've been deported or not, but I know from several stories posted on ALIPAC that under certain situations, they don't have to be "arrested" per se, they're just taken into custody and zoomed out of here, while their lawyers are trying to find where they're "detained". Could be a lot of these workers were visa entries who violated their documents in which case they can just be deported immediately without a hearing or anything.

Come on, let's be serious. Like JD2 said, if any of those folks were deported it wouldn't go unnoticed by the liberal media. Heck, they would be all of that like syrup on pancakes!

I think it's becoming unpopular in certain circles. This was in New York City, right? Where the NYPD has just decided to take on their Mayor and his sanctuary city policies through their police union?? This was in New York City where federal authorities were arresting MS-13 on Long Island after they executed 4 people and cut up their bodies???

I think supporting illegal immigration is quickly becoming unfashionable thanks to our new smart, hard-working President Trump.

This article from 6:55 pm today says the workers are busy fighting for more severance pay. They even have their names, ages and pictures in the paper.

Immigrant workers fight for better severance pay after Trump’s new policies forced their exit from Queens bakery

BY AARON SHOWALTER THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, April 22, 2017, 6:55 PM



Roughly 50 immigrant workers and their supporters gathered outside of Tom Cat Bakery in Queens to demonstrate and to fight for their rights to keep their jobs.
(GO NAKAMURA/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

After years of raising dough for their company, they were tossed out the door like crusty old bread.

Two workers forced to leave a Queens bakery because of their immigration status are now fighting for severance pay — outraged that they were let go as part of President Trump’s harsh new policies.

“It’s so unfair what happened,” Alejandro Teutle, 28, told the Daily News through a translator Saturday. “Me and my co-workers gave many years of hard work...a lot of work...to lift up the company and to make it what it is today.

“We deserve better because we have worked very hard,” he said.

Four cuffed in protest for immigrants workers to stay at bakery

Teutle, a native of Puebla, Mexico, was one of about 15 Tom Cat Bakery workers looking for new employment after the Department of Homeland Security initiated a 1-9 audit and identified 26 immigrant workers at the Long Island City business who had to show proof they can legally work in the U.S.

Teutle had been working at Tom Cat since coming to the U.S. in 2006. The father of a 2-year-old son was a bakery “proofer” and spent his days inspecting the dough to make sure it’s ready for baking.

Alejandro Teutle, 28, talks about his experience working with Tom Cat Bakery.
(SHAWN INGLIMA/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Teutle officially became unemployed Friday after he could not provide proper paperwork about his immigration status.

He and about a dozen others are working with the advocacy group Brandworkers, fighting for a better severance package.

NYC immigrant bakers facing job loss call for Day without Bread

Currently, Tom Cat is offering one week’s pay for every year of service, plus cashed-out sick, holiday and vacation days, and health care for 90 days, according to the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which has represented the endangered Tom Cat employees since the crisis arose.

“What they offered was crumbs, and we deserve more,” said Teutle, who relied on his salary to provide for his boy, as well as his parents, two sisters and a brother back in Mexico.

Worker Manuel Lema is also looking for a new job after a decade of employment with Tom Cat.

Manuel Lema, 51, a former employee at Tom Cat Bakery.
(SHAWN INGLIMA/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

The 51-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, who has been in the U.S. for two decades, was the main breadwinner for his wife and three children.

NYC bakery workers protest feds' threats to fire immigrant staff

“When the audit happened it really bothered us a lot,” Lema said. “I feel that it came as part of the persecution on immigrants from Trump.

“I work very hard producing bread day by day to feed New Yorkers and other people in other states that receive bread from Tomcat,” he added. “I work hard so that they can put bread on their table. When this happened I felt saddened and disappointed.”

“They don’t want to acknowledge that we have dignity,” Lema said about Tom Cat.

Word of the mass termination has sparked several protests at both the bakery and Trump Tower.

On Friday, five supporters working with Brandworkers were arrested after they handcuffed themselves to a delivery truck in the hopes of halting company production for the day.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3089711

Immigrant bakers in Queens call for Day without Bread as they prepare to lose jobs

Ginger Adams Otis
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, April 18, 2017, 7:59 PM

There will be no more baking — or earning — bread on Friday for more than a dozen Tom Cat workers who were told to produce valid working papers by then or be fired.

Some staffers got the required paperwork ahead of the April 21 deadline — but the majority will miss the mark, sources said

The artisanal-bread bakery in Long Island City sent letters to 30 immigrant workers last month telling them they had until April 21 to come up valid U.S. working papers.

Tom Cat’s edict was handed down as part of an I-9 audit by the Department of Homeland Security — begun in January under the Obama administration.

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The audit forced Tom Cat Bakery to tell the staffers to provide proof they could work legally in the U.S. or lose their jobs — and possibly face deportation.

The workers took to the streets in protest, and the union that represents the Tom Cat Bakery workers — The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union — sat down with the employer to help broker a deal for the immigrant staffers.

BCTGM hammered out an accord that said any worker who couldn’t produce the right paperwork by April 21 would get an unpaid leave of up to six months to try and correct their situation.

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They could return to work at any time with no loss of seniority once the DHS requirements were satisfied, Tom Cat Bakery promised as part of the union deal.

Bakery staff must show legal immigration status to stay employed

Workers who were unable to meet DHS’s demands after six months would be let go by the bakery — with a full severance package that included a week’s pay for every year of service, 90 days of continued health care coverage and permission to cash out all remaining vacation, holiday and sick days. Most of the employees have over 10 years’ experience, and some as many as 20.

Eleven staffers, with the help of an immigration attorney, were able to produce valid paperwork already, according to sources.

At least one other worker who felt the right papers could be obtained took the deal — agreeing to go on unpaid leave until the situation was rectified.

The remaining 18 or so workers rejected Tom Cat Bakery’s offer — saying they wanted to continue to fight, both for more compensation and protections for other immigrant workers in the food industry.

Backed by Queens-based nonprofit Brandworkers, the Tom Cat staffers on the verge of unemployment are calling for “A Day Without Bread” Friday.

As part of the protest, the workers want restaurants and consumers to refrain from selling or eating bread.

Harvest & Ravel Catering in Brooklyn will donate a portion of its sales of sandwiches and Samesa, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Brooklyn, will donate 50 cents of every dollar in sales of bread items to the workers' relief fund, Brandworkers said. Colors Restaurant in Manhattan will refrain from serving bread at all.

Brandworkers founder Daniel Gross said the affected Tom Cat staffers “will press on” until their objectives are met.

“The company has taken some steps in the right direction, but there’s no offer on the table that workers believe meets their aspirations,” he said.

An NYPD officer tries to persuade Tom Cat Bakery protesters to move so they don't block the sidewalk during a rally on April 8 in Manhattan.

Gross said his organization supports collectively-bargained contracts 110% but he hadn’t been coordinating with BCTGM to help the workers.

“As an advocacy group, we’re a different model,” he said.

While he praised the “cooperative steps” Tom Cat took in recent days, he also noted that the bakery initially offered the workers zero compensation — and only started to negotiate as employees ratcheted up the street protests.

DHS audit at Tom Cat Bakery started during Obama administration

Beyond earning their daily bread, Gross said, the immigrant workers at Tom Cat wanted assurances from the company that “best practices” would be followed in future regarding DHS.

“These are the things that every responsible employer who has immigrant workers should be doing in the age of President Trump,” said Gross.

Those “best practices” include a promise from Tom Cat not to let DHS or immigration enforcement agents onto the property without a legal warrant, as well as notice to workers and advocates if DHS is talking to the company about any possible audits or actions, Gross said.

Many of the workers’ goals were broader than just basic compensation, he noted.

But Gross said many felt the latest severance offer from the company didn’t put enough value on their labor contributions over the years.

“These are very skilled craftspeople baking excellent bread. I think the company, having benefited from this work .... needs to make sure those years of service get valued. The employees are absolutely demanding severance that reflects their contribution,” Gross said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3071261

Looks like 18 out of 30 suspected might have a papers problem.