It was just the latest skirmish in a bare-knuckles organizing battle between Service Employees International Union Local 6, which represents 2,500 unionized janitors in the area, and Allied, the area's largest non-union contractor, with close to 400 employees. For months now, SEIU has been pressing to organize workers at the company, which has recently expanded from its Eastside base into a significant downtown presence, pushing out higher-paid union workers in the process.
Given the uncertain immigration status of many of the area's primarily Hispanic janitors, the firing raises thorny legal questions. The union claims that Allied is effectively making an end-run around the National Labor Relations Act, which protects union-organizing efforts, targeting pro-union employees for dismissal. Allied, SEIU contends, illegally requires such employees to re-prove their status as legal immigrants, firing those who cannot.
The dispute started in earnest on February 11, when Allied removed employee Hugo Portillo from the U.S. Bank building in Bellevue, allegedly because of his organizing efforts. Portillo's removal prompted seven other janitors in the building to walk out for one day in protest. Allied fired the workers, prompting SEIU to complain to the National Labor Relations Board. According to federal law, strikes over unfair labor practices are legally protected, and striking workers must be allowed to return to work when the job action ends. On April 8, Allied offered to let the workers return, but demanded they refile documents with the company to prove their legal immigration status.
On May 2, the NLRB found the union's complaint had merit and scheduled a June 30 hearing. The complaint states that, "the conditional offer of reinstatement... was invalid inasmuch as Allied did not possess evidence that a genuine issue existed regarding the eligibility of employees engaged in the Strike to work in the United States." Allied capitulated under the NLRB pressure, offering the seven workers unconditional reinstatement, the union says.
NLRB acting regional director Catherine Roth says that the question of when a company is allowed to recheck the immigration status of its employees is "a gray area," but adds that "unless you have a really good reason--a good business justification--it looks very suspect if it's true that the employees were involved in organizing activities, and you have not done [such checks] before."
While Roth says the NLRB complaint may now be dropped given Allied's unconditional reinstatement offer, Secky Fascione, SEIU's Northwest regional coordinator, claims that in the last several weeks Allied has fired at least nine more workers active in organizing efforts, including Miguelina, all on the basis of rechecked immigration papers, and says the union intends to pursue these new cases with NLRB.
"Our dispute with Allied is that they are interfering with workers' rights and immigrants' rights," Fascione says. "It is still true under American labor law that workers have a right to organize." Allied did not return several calls.
