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A group of immigrant seafood workers has renewed and expanded its labor dispute with a New Bedford fish house and a temporary job-placement agency, holding a second demonstration on the waterfront and filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
The seven workers formerly employed at Marder Trawling through Workforce Unlimited allege the companies engaged in multiple violations of the National Labor Relations Act, including terminating employees for their participation in protected activities.
The workers and the Boston-based nonprofit Justice at Work filed the complaint on March 31. Supporters held a demonstration outside Marder on April 9, their second in six months. There, workers and advocates attempted to hand the charges to the company publicly, though no one answered when they knocked on the door. Among the demonstrators were State Rep. Christopher Hendricks and Ward 1 City Councilor Leo Choquette.
Several workers who said they were let go for their activities on a worker’s committee spoke at the event.
“I was fired unjustly for organizing,” Evelyn Velasquez Morales, who formerly worked at the plant and joined the NLRB complaint, said in Spanish. “They gave us no explanation or advance warning. This caused us a lot of stress because we did not know how long we would be without work.
“We weren’t able to pay our rent,” she continued. “And we are here asking them to give us back our jobs because we were fired unjustly.”
Choquette, who also spoke at a protest in November, shortly after 29 workers at Marder were let go, reiterated his support for the workers at the April demonstration.
“It doesn’t matter what your status is, whether you’re here legally or you have a green card,” Choquette told the gathering. “If your right to work is being compromised, if you’re being fired for duplicitous reasons, that’s not right.
“It’s our job to make sure that folks have proper representation and that no one is treated unfairly,” he continued.
The seven workers who filed the NLRB complaint were among 29 workers let go in November. Activists say some of the workers were terminated in retaliation for a lawsuit that five workers filed in October in U.S. District Court Massachusetts against the two companies and a former Marder floor manager, Francisco Ixcotoyac Dionicio. Marder said through a spokesman that the workers let go were not direct employees of the company and the terminations were the result of seasonal ebbs and flows.
“Like others in our industry, when labor needs decrease, we inform our staffing agency that fewer workers are needed at our facility,” Marder said in a statement to The Light. “That occurred last fall, when completed orders and broader business conditions required a reduction in staffing levels. Unfortunately, this also affected some members of our own direct workforce.”
“Because these individuals were not Marder employees, the allegation that Marder ‘terminated’ or ‘threatened to terminate’ any staffing-agency employee is a mischaracterization,” the statement continued. “Marder has no authority to terminate the employment of a staffing-agency employee.”
The statement also took aim at Hendricks and Choquette for their presence at the demonstration.
“We are disappointed that two elected officials chose to participate in the event rather than engage directly with us,” it said. “We would welcome the opportunity to meet with elected representatives and discuss concerns in a constructive setting.”
The Light left a voice message for Andrew Wilkes, the owner of Workforce Unlimited, Inc. He did not return the call.
“We take these allegations seriously and are addressing the matter through the appropriate legal process,” a Marder company statement said. “Because this is an ongoing matter, we will not comment on individual personnel situations.”
The company also confirmed it had received the charges before the demonstration via the mail.
The charges filed with the NLRB are separate from the federal litigation. The charges also include coercing workers into signing arbitration agreements.
“This is completely independent of the extortion case,” said Lisa Maya Knauer, co-founder of the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, a labor organization helping the workers. “They have a committee; that is the protected activity.”
Arbitration fight in U.S. District Court
In the suit, several workers accused Ixcotoyac Dionicio of extorting a $100 weekly fee from workers to keep their jobs. Those who lived in Rhode Island were also required to use vans owned by Ixcotoyac Dionicio to get to and from work, paying $60 a week for the commute, the suit said.
The suit claims that Marder and Workforce “should have been aware” of Ixcotoyac Dionicio’s activities.
“Marder benefitted from the agreement because it was able to retain Defendant Ixcotoyac at a lower salary than the market permitted for a plant manager,” the lawsuit alleges. “Marder benefited from the agreement because, through its agent Ixcotoyac, it was able to reduce its labor cost.”
In a footnote in a January filing responding to the complaint, Ixcotoyac Dionicio claimed to have resolved the payments at issue.
“Defendant admits to paying the Plaintiffs and others sums that were demanded of him as what he intended to be a full and final compromise of disputed claims,” wrote Jason A. Dixon-Acosta, Ixcotoyac Dionicio’s lawyer. Dixon-Costa denied the allegations in an earlier interview with The Light.
Ixcotoyac Dionicio is currently facing separate criminal charges in New Bedford District Court independent of the labor case. The charges included five counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 and over, one count of open and gross lewdness, and another of intimidation of a witness, juror, police officer, or official. He is currently awaiting trial and out on house arrest under GPS supervision with allowances for church, work, and medical appointments.
Dixon-Acosta declined to comment on those charges. Ixcotoyac Dionicio’s employment at Marder ended after those charges came to light.
In February, lawyers for Marder filed a motion to compel arbitration in conjunction with an agreement the workers signed with Workforce as a condition of employment.
Attorneys for the workers suing Marder and Workforce said in their response that the terms of the arbitration clause infringed on their rights and were signed due to coercion.
Contact Kevin G. Andrade at kandrade@newbedfordlight.org.
Who is the spokesperson for Marder?
I believe there is no spokesperson for Marder. Why would that matter? The facts are laid out and indisputable.