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Company Forced To Fire 260 Employees For Fake SSNs, Union Objects
No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles.For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance. It wasn't a hot tip or an undercover informant that helped seal their fates, but a computer check of Social Security numbers. "A desktop raid" is how the workers' representative, John M. Grant, vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, described the scenario. Overhill, a $200-million-a-year company that provides frozen meals for clients such as American Airlines, Panda Express, Safeway and Jenny Craig, says it had no choice: An Internal Revenue Service audit found that 260 workers had provided "invalid or fraudulent" Social Security numbers. The government took no action against the workers. But Overhill did: All of the employees were fired May 31. Employers facing stiff fines and potential prison terms for hiring illegal immigrants may decide to fire employees who have suspect paperwork. Overhill says it gave the workers 30 days to correct the problem with the IRS and provide the company with verification, but none did so. Overhill, whose workforce is largely Latino, says it has no idea of the legal status of the fired employees. No one has formally accused them of being illegal immigrants. Still, the company argues that it risked potential criminal liability under tax and immigration laws if it continued to employ them after the IRS audit. "Based on the advice of three different law firms, the company's belief was that it was legally compelled to terminate these employees," Auerbach said. Overhill has already rehired workers for most positions. But the union says Overhill responded rashly. "I think the company acted hastily and unnecessarily," said Peter Schey, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented the union. "Legally, there was nothing that compelled these terminations."
"My Social Security number was good all these years, why is it suddenly no good now?" asked Eva Macias, a 19-year veteran of Overhill Farms.
The plant's union has demanded that an independent arbitrator hear their case. But such a session can take months to arrange. "We're talking here about hundreds of families that have been denied a gainful wage, denied medical care," said Grant, the union official. "This basically tears apart an entire community."
Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-06-12 |
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