Tuesday, March 16, 2021

The 6th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the deportation threatener


Full disclosure — I love Tate's Bake Shop's gluten free cookies. Prior to gluten free Oreos hitting supermarket shelves (I dare you to tell them apart from their full-glutened sibling), I bought Tate's gluten free chocolate chip cookies all of the time. The allegations raised by this story, however, gives me great pause in ever buying their cookies again. 

It seems that Tate's is in the middle of a union organizing campaign and the baker is alleged to have threatened with deportation undocumented workers who support the union.

Long Island News 12 fills in the details.

Union officials say workers at Tate's Bake Shop are being threatened with deportation if they try to unionize.… [E]mployees disclosed the allegations to News 12 with their identities shielded for fear of retaliation.

Those who spoke to News 12 spoke through a Spanish interpreter. They alleged that some employees at Tate's, a majority of whom are undocumented immigrants, say they're being harassed at work.…

Employees say they're scared they'll lose their jobs or even be deported, because they claim management has threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
If you knowingly hire undocumented workers (strike 1), treat them so shabbily that they try to organize via a union (strike 2), and threaten to call ICE to have pro-union workers deported (strike 3), you might be the worst employer of 2021.