The latest casualty of the government shutdown has proven to be the nation’s labor laws. Supporters joined wronged workers on the steps of the shuttered National Labor Relations Board this morning in search of justice after a Bestway grocery store illegally fired dozens of workers, many of whom are longtime employees, for seeking union representation. “We are fighting for respect and just trying to hold onto our dignity,” said Vilda Yolanda Godines, single mother of a 6-year-old with one child on the way and 4-year employee at Bestway. “We came together to ask Bestway to negotiate with us. Instead, they called the police to keep us away from our jobs. But we are saying ‘No’ to threats and intimidation. We are saying ‘No’ to illegal firings.” Workers at the Falls Church, Va. Bestway store are among the first to confront the breakdown of the nation’s labor laws. With the National Labor Relations Board closed due to government shutdown, Ms. Godines and her co-workers are left without any viable recourse for justice when employers like Bestway violate labor laws. “Bestway thinks that the government shutdown means that it is open season on workers said Don Cash of the NAACP. “Bestway has found the worst ways of violating the rights of these workers. It is time for us to reopen the National Labor Relations Board and restore justice for American workers.”
Gladys Teo telling her story to Estrella TV about how she signed a union card at her cash register while on break and the next day her employer, Bestway, changed her schedule and hours.
The workers at the Falls Church, Va. Bestway store formed a union in late September, with the overwhelming majority of store employees signing cards to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400. But Bestway has ignored the workers’ requests to recognize their union and set bargaining dates. Instead, the company has engaged in systematic illegal retaliation against union supporters by cutting hours, changing schedules, holding one-on-one interrogation meetings, and threatening to call immigration on the workers, among other scare tactics. When the workers staged a one-hour work-stoppage last week to draw attention to their plight, Bestway retaliated against its staff and fired thirty workers, an action that violates national labor laws. “The government shut down has shut us out from justice,” said Matilde Reyes, supervisor at Bestway who walked off the job to support her coworkers. “Bestway doesn’t feel that they have to follow the law while the government is shut down. But we will continue to fight until Bestway recognizes our right to stick together and bargain for better jobs.”