VTMBH Article: Body
In Hebrew, Tuv Taam means good taste. But many of the kosher food companys workers say its most important product is bad faith.
Last week, the 10-month-old labor conflict at the Williamsburg-based appetizer and frozen food purveyor entered a new phase when Tuv Taams management let a government-set deadline slip without meeting two key conditions of a settlement with immigrant workers; they involve back pay and the posting of multilingual notices of organizing rights inside the plant.
A rally marking the date featured both Jewish and Latino speakers active in support of the dissident workers, most of them from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Groups included Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, the Jewish Labor Committee and the Greater New York Labor Religion Coalition, as well as the Puerto Rican Defense Fund, Latin American Workers Project and the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants. Outside the Tuv Taam plant, protestors chanted Tuv Taam, pay your workers and Tuv Taam, not kosher.
Everyone is interested in a negotiated settlement, Rabbi Michael Feinberg, director of the Labor Religion Coalition, told The Jewish Week. Its not an issue of ethnicity or religious belief.
Simmering tensions between Tuv Taam bosses and employees over wages, overtime and working conditions came to a head last August with a series of firings, walkouts and lockouts. Then, Mexican workers who were fired or quit gave way to immigrant Polish hires, who have proven more pliant to management interest. In March, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) brokered a deal between managers and present and former Mexican workers. Though the back-pay part of the agreement totaled only $26,000 slated for 22 employees, the company had not written the check by the end of the six-month deadline.
Luis Lopez, organizing director of Local 1102 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has mounted a unionizing drive among Tuv Taam employees, alleged a long pattern by the company of union busting, pay cuts, surveillance, bribery and intimidation.
Theyve been one of the most anti-union companies out there, he said. Now theyre going against the government.
Reportedly, after months of locking its doors against dissident workers and public agencies, Tuv Taam is facing a fine of more than $1 million by the state attorney generals office and has sacrificed eligibility for valuable tax abatements.
Tuv Taams president Aaron Nutovitch declined to comment on the allegations and the disputed NLRB agreement, citing ongoing legal proceedings. But he called Local 1102 an outside group with its own interests, showing up at his plant to brainwash his workforce. He asked if Tuv Taam were as harsh to its workers as adversaries claimed, Why do I have over 100 employees working for me now?
Said Jews for Racial & Economic Justice member Sarah Eisenstein: Jewish tradition is as clear about respecting the rights of workers as it about not mixing meat and milk.
Last week, the 10-month-old labor conflict at the Williamsburg-based appetizer and frozen food purveyor entered a new phase when Tuv Taams management let a government-set deadline slip without meeting two key conditions of a settlement with immigrant workers; they involve back pay and the posting of multilingual notices of organizing rights inside the plant.
A rally marking the date featured both Jewish and Latino speakers active in support of the dissident workers, most of them from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Groups included Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, the Jewish Labor Committee and the Greater New York Labor Religion Coalition, as well as the Puerto Rican Defense Fund, Latin American Workers Project and the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants. Outside the Tuv Taam plant, protestors chanted Tuv Taam, pay your workers and Tuv Taam, not kosher.
Everyone is interested in a negotiated settlement, Rabbi Michael Feinberg, director of the Labor Religion Coalition, told The Jewish Week. Its not an issue of ethnicity or religious belief.
Simmering tensions between Tuv Taam bosses and employees over wages, overtime and working conditions came to a head last August with a series of firings, walkouts and lockouts. Then, Mexican workers who were fired or quit gave way to immigrant Polish hires, who have proven more pliant to management interest. In March, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) brokered a deal between managers and present and former Mexican workers. Though the back-pay part of the agreement totaled only $26,000 slated for 22 employees, the company had not written the check by the end of the six-month deadline.
Luis Lopez, organizing director of Local 1102 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has mounted a unionizing drive among Tuv Taam employees, alleged a long pattern by the company of union busting, pay cuts, surveillance, bribery and intimidation.
Theyve been one of the most anti-union companies out there, he said. Now theyre going against the government.
Reportedly, after months of locking its doors against dissident workers and public agencies, Tuv Taam is facing a fine of more than $1 million by the state attorney generals office and has sacrificed eligibility for valuable tax abatements.
Tuv Taams president Aaron Nutovitch declined to comment on the allegations and the disputed NLRB agreement, citing ongoing legal proceedings. But he called Local 1102 an outside group with its own interests, showing up at his plant to brainwash his workforce. He asked if Tuv Taam were as harsh to its workers as adversaries claimed, Why do I have over 100 employees working for me now?
Said Jews for Racial & Economic Justice member Sarah Eisenstein: Jewish tradition is as clear about respecting the rights of workers as it about not mixing meat and milk.