Immigrant Workers Say Chipotle is Firing Them for Organizing

Randall’s Island Migrant Shelter to Close; Migrants Speak of Their Experience

BY JR HOLGUIN SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL

Mayor Eric Adams will open a fourth Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) to serve asylum seekers arriving in New York City and will begin demobilizing Randall's Island Relief Center. Randall's Island Relief Center, which Mayor Adams placed to house 500 single adult males, had remained nearly empty from the time it opened. In a statement released November 10, the Adams administration stated that the number of single adult males seeking asylum in New York City has reduced, leading to the closure of Randall's Island Relief Center. Those asylum seekers currently housed in Randall's Island Relief Center will be offered transportation to the fourth HERRC, located in the Watson Hotel in midtown Manhattan, which is designated with 600 rooms to aid asylum seekers. "We continue to welcome asylum seekers arriving in New York City with compassion and care. This Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center will provide asylum seekers with a place to stay, access support, and get to their final destination," said Mayor Adams. The "humanitarian emergency response and relief center," a giant tent, was initially planned to be placed at Orchard Beach in the Bronx but was relocated to Randall's Island and opened its door to migrants Tuesday, October 18. The Adams’ administration built the center to house 500 men to alleviate the overran shelters in New York because of the many migrants bused from Texas. So, how much is that controversial tent complex for newly-arrived immigrants on Randall's Island costing New York City taxpayers? Comptroller Brad Lander wants to know. In a letter sent on Friday, November 11, to the city's budget office, Lander demanded the price tag and contract specifics after Mayor Eric Adams decided to close the refugee camp-style facility less than a month after it opened. "This was a debacle," Lander told City Limits. "So many people were saying to do this in a hotel from a humanitarian point of view, but that's true from a resources point of view too." Lander specifically asked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a "detailed accounting of the costs associated with erecting, dismantling, rebuilding, and operating the HERRC facility initially sited at Orchard Beach and relocated to Randall's Island." An August 2022 report by the Texas Tribune confirmed that the state of Texas spent a sum of $12,707,720.92 busing migrants from Texas to New York, Chicago, and D.C. Some of the men in the shelter said they spent close to 50 days in detention centers in Texas before being bused to New York. But with an estimated headcount of fewer than 150 men currently staying at the shelter, every migrant story is different. A man from Venezuela worked odd jobs along the way and bought his bus ticket to New York. While another migrant from Haiti said his trip was less stressful, he flew to Puerto Rico and then took a final flight to New York. continued on page 12

Randall’s Island Relief Center. Photo by JR Holguin/IQ Inc

Immigrant Workers Say Chipotle is Firing Them for Organizing

BY AMIR KHAFAGY DOCUMENTED NY

Across the country, overworked and underpaid Chipotle workers, organizing with 32BJ SEIU, have been fighting to form a union. Since 2019, in New York, immigrant workers, who have been leading that fight, have faced workplace retaliation, with several even being fired for their organizing efforts. It was December of 2021 and the pandemic still appeared to have no end in sight. Like many other Chipotle immigrant workers, Winifer Pena Ruiz made the decision to quit her past job at McDonald’s to go to her new company’s White Plains Road location in the Bronx. “The pay was better and I thought the hours were going to be better and more flexible,” she said. Since coming to the U.S from the Dominican Republic in 2018, she has been sending almost every penny she earns back home to support her aging mother. A job at Chipotle, which paid her $17 an hour, $2 more an hour than she earned at McDonald’s, would make a world of difference for her family. Yet three months into the job, she began to grow disillusioned with the company. “The manager would be very negative to the employees and treat us like we were her little kids,” she said. “She would yell at us and cut our hours.” Feeling mistreated, last April, 22-yearold Ruiz began organizing her co-workers with the help of 32BJ SEIU to form a union at her location. When she signed a petition demanding an increase in wages, her managers found out and pressured her not to support the union. “I feel I was being targeted for my involvement, ” Ruiz said. “She said I was crazy for signing the petition and that unions are bad and that they steal people’s money through dues.” On September 19th, she was fired. Without a job, she can no longer send money back to the Dominican Republic to purchase the vital medication her mother requires. “It affected me a lot negatively when I got fired,” she said. “My mom depends on me a lot.” In response, SEIU 32BJ, the union leading the campaign to unionize Chipotle, filed an unfair labor practices charge against Chipotle on Ruiz’s behalf

Editorial credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com with the National Labor Relations Board. Ruiz is one of the immigrant workers of Chipotle who claims to be fired due to their union activity. Across the country, overworked and underpaid Chipotle workers, organizing with 32BJ SEIU, have been fighting to form a union. Since 2019, in New York, immigrant workers, who have been leading that fight, have faced workplace retaliation, with several even being fired for their organizing efforts. In 2020, Luisa Mendez, who was employed at Chipotle’s 14th Street location in Manhattan, was fired for using her paid sick time to care for her family. She believed it was in retaliation for her union activity. In April, another immigrant Chipotle worker, Brenda Garcia, claimed that she was also fired for leading union efforts at her Flushing, Queens location. A few months later in July, 16 Chipotle workers filed complaints with the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), claiming management had either cut their hours or were fired for their union efforts.

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Chipotle is Firing / continued from page 4 For nearly a decade, immigrant workers of Chipotle bore the brunt of the company’s toxic workplace practices. In 2011, 600 suspected undocumented workers at Chipotle locations across Minnesota were abruptly fired. Dozens more Latino workers were fired in Washington D.C. without prior warning. After receiving a warning from the Department of Homeland Security, who audited Chipotle’s personnel records and found that it had hired undocumented immigrants, the company initiated mass firings without giving workers sufficient time to prove their status. “The company used us,” said a fired worker at the time. “And when it didn’t serve them anymore, they threw us away like trash.” In August, Mayor Eric Adams announced that Chipotle would be forced to pay $20 million to 13,000 Chiptole workers for violating their right to predictable schedules and paid sick leave. The settlement came after 160 Chiptole workers and SEIU 32BJ, complained to DCWP that the company was violating the City’s Paid Safe and Sick Leave Law and its Fair Workweek Law. Under the Fair Work Week Law, fast food restaurants can’t fire or reduce the hours of a worker by more than 15 percent without cause. Since the law went into effect in 2017, DCWP has received more than 500 complaints about Fair Workweek violations, opened more than 250 investigations, and obtained resolutions requiring over $24 million in combined fines and restitution for more than 17,000 workers. Still, Ruiz had her hours severely reduced and was abruptly fired, in clear violation of the law. “No one who bravely decides, as Winifer did, to stand up and demand the respect and dignity all working New Yorkers deserve should ever wonder if doing so will cost them their jobs,” said Kyle Bragg, SEIU 32BJ President. “Sadly, her experience is only one example of Chipotle’s troubled operations in New York.” Since the settlement, DCWP stated that they are currently investigating Chipotle for possible recent Fair Workweek violations. In the meantime, last month, the New York City Council Committee on Consumer and Labor Protection held a hearing regarding two key pieces of legislation addressing the problem of fast food companies, including Chipotle, that repeatedly violates the Fair Workweek law. Intro 0613 would allow the City to deny, suspend, or revoke the fast food restaurant permits of the most egregious, repeat violators of these laws. Additionally, Intro 0640 empowers the City to mandate that fast food employers pay for the time their employees spend in training regarding their rights. Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor and is one of the lead sponsors of both pieces of legislation and has been closely following the Chipotle unionization effort for about two years when a store in her Bronx district began to organize. Workers at that location were being fired for unionizing or had their hours cut in retaliation. An immigrant single mother had told De La Rosa that her hours were cut because she couldn’t work evening hours due to her children. Although the City has a Fair Workweek law on the books, on the ground, De La Rosa was learning about continued violations. “What we are hearing from the reports from the workers locally, from the district, and from across the city is that they are not following those laws, They are violating those laws,” she said. After her discussions with Chipotle immigrant workers in her district, De La Rosa determined that she needed to push for increased protection for these workers. “The bill I introduced would specifically put at risk their license to be a food service establishment with the City of New York if they continue to be egregious,” she said. De La Rosa believes that given Chipotle’s refusal to follow labor law, the only way for Chipotle immigrant workers to truly have justice is by forming a union. “Clearly they are not going to adhere to the city laws and not even to the state laws that are being put in place,” she said. “So, they are going to continue to violate, if they have a unionized workplace they will be forced to, one collectively bargain and two, protect these Chipotle immigrant workers and make sure they are not exploited. I think organized labor is one of the tools provided for continued on page 8

Kyle Bragg, SEIU 32BJ President Editorial credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com CM Carmen De La Rosa. Photo: carmenfornyc.com

Biden Directs Pregnant Migrant Minors to be Sheltered in States That Allow Abortions

BY JANET HOWARD

WASHINGTON, DC: In June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling recognizing a constitutional right to abortion. At least 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, while some have been blocked by litigation. In response to the abortion ban, the Biden administration issued a directive on Thursday, November 10, stating that pregnant migrant children should be sheltered in states that allow abortions. The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is responsible for sheltering unaccompanied minors who enter the U.S. illegally. The policy is twofold: First, ORR must prioritize placing pregnant immigrant youth in shelters in states where abortion has not been banned; and second, if a minor is in a shelter where abortion is banned requests access to abortion, ORR must transfer her to another state where she can obtain care. The ORR's guidance issued to staff said that girls who are sheltered in states such as Texas that ban abortion and request abortion services should be transferred to states that allow the procedure. According to ORR data, about one-third of the 123,000 unaccompanied migrant children taken into U.S. custody in the fiscal year 2021 were female. The data does not specify how many of them were pregnant. This recent guidance builds on an ORR memo issued in 2021 that said pregnant unaccompanied minors should not be sheltered in Texas after the state passed a restrictive abortion ban. The directive makes the guidance the agency's official policy. The guidance issued on November 10 builds upon a previously issued policy secured in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that was the culmination of a years-long battle to ensure access to abortion for minors in ORR custody. In response to ORR's new guidance, Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, issued the following statement: "We applaud ORR's decision to place pregnant unaccompanied immigrant youth in states where they can access the full range of health care they may need, including abortion. The abortion bans in places like Texas not only prohibit access to abortion but also to some miscarriage care. While unaccompanied immigrant youth should not be detained in the first place, this guidance will play a critical role in ensuring healthcare access for them, many of whom come to the United States fleeing violent circumstances, including sexual assault. "While this is a step in the right direction, the Biden administration must continue its efforts to ensure abortion access for other people in government custody by strengthening Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection policies. Abortion is essential health care, and accessing it shouldn't depend on your immigration status, whether you're incarcerated, or which state you're in."l

The policy is twofold: First, ORR must prioritize placing pregnant immigrant youth in shelters in states where abortion has not been banned; and second, if a minor is in a shelter where abortion is banned requests access to abortion, ORR must transfer her to another state where she can obtain care.