Mexican workers fired for attending immigrant rights rally in Detroit

Among the fired workers—16 women and five men—several had worked for the company for many years, although 20 of the 21 workers were employed through a temporary agency, Minuteman Staffing. Most were undocumented workers, who face the most severe repercussions, including criminal sanctions and deportation, under the legislation currently being debated in Congress.

The day after the rally, when the workers reported for their morning shift, a supervisor told them to clean out their lockers and go home. The only full-time employee, Minerva Ramirez, 31, who earned $10.35 an hour after working for Wolverine for six years, said she told her supervisor that she planned to go to the demonstration. When she reported to work the next day she was prevented from entering the plant.

“It was not fair,” an undocumented worker who was fired told the Detroit Free Press. “We went to fight for our rights.”

Wolverine, which employs 350 mainly Mexican workers in a cluster of three plants in Detroit’s Eastern Market district, is typical of many companies in the meatpacking industry, where tens of thousands of Hispanic and Asian immigrants labor for low wages in unsafe, filthy conditions. This exploitation is maintained through management intimidation, reinforced by periodic military-style raids by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the arrest and deportation of thousands of undocumented workers.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/wolv-a14.shtml