FreshDirect fires 85 "immigrant" workers

[Vito]

I urge everyone to contact FreshDirect and thank them for standing true to the U.S Constitution and American citizens. This link will send you directly to their contact page:

http://www.freshdirect.com/help/contact_fd.jsp


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/12/12/2007-12-12_freshdirect_axes_immigrant_workers.html

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
FreshDirect axes immigrant workers

BY JOHN LAUINGER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, December 12th 2007, 4:00 AM

Online grocery giant FreshDirect is axing scores of immigrants in a crackdown on undocumented workers at its Queens warehouse.

Teary-eyed workers filed out of the delivery company's factory in Long Island City yesterday after supervisors demanded they produce papers proving their immigration status is legal.

"It's just like a funeral," said factory worker Ezra Ballantyne of the scene at the warehouse, where disconsolate workers bid painful goodbyes to their grocery-packing colleagues.

"You're talking about guys who've been here for five or six years that have to leave their jobs," said Ballantyne, 51, who is a U.S. citizen.

"It's a bad thing."

Up to 85 workers are expected to get the chop just days before Christmas.

Management insisted it carried out the purge under pressure from federal authorities to crack down on illegal immigrants. The feds refused to confirm such a probe.

Jim Moore, FreshDirect's senior vice president for business affairs, said in a statement the company is "cooperating with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in its review of employment documentation." He declined further comment.

Union organizers say the move may be part of an effort to intimidate the 900 or so warehouse workers in advance of a union vote set for next weekend.

Teamsters Local 805 of Long Island City is competing with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 348 to represent the warehouse workers.

"It's shocking that they would take action like this right before Christmas," said Sandy Pope, president of Teamsters Local 805.

"They really are going out of their way to stop the union vote," Pope said.

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[RationalThought110]

Why weren't all of them detained?

[Dan]

LIC is near to where I live, do you think that this will stick?
Now will see even more illegals on the street corners, why don't they do something about that? I can give them the exact spots in case the Police haven't figured it out. 

[Vito]

LIC is near to where I live, do you think that this will stick?
Now will see even more illegals on the street corners, why don't they do something about that? I can give them the exact spots in case the Police haven't figured it out. 

I don't know what they did with the illegals, hopefully they were detained..