By Bill Parry
The head of Tom Cat Bakery maintains the company had no choice but to dismiss immigrant employees last Friday after a recent audit by the Department of Homeland Security. Keith Bleier, the company’s president and CEO, said Tom Cat was compelled to release the workers after they were unable to produce proper documents by the April 21 deadline.
“While Tom Cat regrets losing valued members of our workforce, we must, of course, ensure that Tom Cat is in compliance with all applicable employment laws, including those pertaining to authorization to work in the United States,” Bleier wrote to the remaining employees.
Four supporters of the terminated workers at the Long Island City bakery were arrested and led away in handcuffs after they chained themselves to the underside of delivery trucks early Friday morning. The two men and two women were cheered by the immigrant workers who rallied outside the bakery, instead of working their final shifts, following their termination for not producing proper employment documentation.
Following the DHS audit in December, Tom Cat management told 31 workers to produce adequate working documents by last Friday or face termination and possible deportation. Eleven workers were able to “satisfy the government requirements” for immigration papers, while 20 were dismissed with severance pay, according to Tom Cat Bakery attorney William Wachtel.
“The Trump administration may want us to quietly disappear, but we’re not going away silently,” Tom Cat worker Henry Rivera said. “We’re on strike today to send a message that we help make America great and we cannot just be thrown away like day-old bread.”
Tom Cat employees describe their efforts as just the beginning of a sustained fight against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant workers, culminating in a General Strike May 1. The workers also rallied outside Trump Tower earlier this month, but Wachtel said their anger is misplaced.
“This audit began under the Obama administration, before Trump was president,” Wachtel said.
An organizer from nonprofit Brandworkers, which has been working with the Tom Cat Bakery employees since 2011, was not sure if any deportation proceedings have begun.
“We are not sure which administration initiated to original audit here at Tom Cat, but we know that DHS has been emboldened by Trump’s racist rhetoric,” Brandworker’s Gabriel Morales said Friday. “These are the first of many workers across the nation that will face action from ICE and DHS and have their families torn apart. This company was built on the backs of these workers and the way they’ve treated their employees is like they’re throwing out the trash.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
