Case: dismissed

>> Immigrant workers accuse a local company of unjust firing practices

by CRAIG SEGAL

"Jane" has been a wreck since Onetex, a local stocking manufacturing company, fired her over a year ago. Her union did not take on her case, so she turned to the Immigrant Workers' Centre (IWC) in Côte-des-Neiges. The IWC says Jane is one of dozens of immigrant workers who may have been fired or laid off unjustly by Onetex. The IWC is supporting workers with pending cases at the Labour Standards Commission (Commission des normes du travail)--one of which goes to court this week--and is mounting a campaign against the company.

The head of the IWC says workers don't try to fight their dismissals since they don't know Canadian labour laws. "They get fired all the time, and they don't complain," says Tess Tesalona, coordinator of the IWC. "They need money, so they get new jobs right away. It becomes a cycle. No one complains and the employer thinks everything is fine."

Onetex, located at 3195 Bedford, employs around 200 mostly women workers of nearly 40 nationalities. It was formerly known as Sara Lee Hosiery, and before that, Giltex. Jane accuses Onetex of using a calculated strategy to fire her because she had been there 11 years and was paid a higher salary than new workers. She says they moved her from unfamiliar job to unfamiliar job in four departments in order to lower her standard of work. She did not know the new work and couldn't reach her quota.

"When they moved me I never complained," she says. "I thought with all my experience I would get promoted. I never knew how long I would stay at each job. Then they told me I wasn't making 100 per cent performance. I still don't know what 100 per cent performance means."

Now on employment insurance, she earns half of what she made at the factory. Because of her drop in income, Jane sends a fraction of the $4,000 yearly she used to send to relatives in the Philippines. She suffers from migraines and stomach pain. She sleeps badly, and worries constantly about her future.

Another Filipino worker tells a similar story. After five years, her supervisors started increasing her quota and moved her to three different jobs. She could not perform as well in the new jobs and her superiors told her she was not reaching quota. Like many dismissed workers, she went on employment insurance before finding a new job. She plans to challenge her dismissal in court.

Typical case, normal procedure

The IWC says the Filipinos' cases are typical. In an informal survey of 26 ex-Onetex employees, they found patterns. "The tactics include pressure from the company, with senior employees in particular being pushed to increase the quantity and speed of production, especially in certain departments such as auto-packing," says a report written by the Onetex Support Group, made of IWC employees and volunteers.

The report says the company moves workers to different departments where they cannot reach quota. This is done, for example, by "putting senior women in departments that require more strength/physical labour," the report says. "Workers with seniority are also often reduced to starting salary in the new department. In addition, management started raising quotas when they were met, laying off workers and sometimes calling them back afterward (to starting salary). As a result of these exploitative and discouraging practices, some workers voluntarily quit or did not wish to return after they were laid off."

The company admits laying off workers, but claims it is normal procedure in a seasonal industry like stocking manufacturing. Judith Boisjoli, director human resources at Onetex, swings the layoff axe. The 33 year old says she has laid off or dismissed 100-125 people in the year and a half she has had the job. "It's a fact of life," Boisjoli says. "We are a company that is producing seasonal products. So it is something that has always been going on. You can talk to any one of our competitors and it's going to be the same thing."

Boisjoli says she lays off by seniority "in order to be fair and just to everybody." She says the company cannot afford to keep workers year round. "It is an industry where the price has been kept very, very low for a long period of time, which explains why, for the last couple of years, all the companies in the industry have had many problems coping because the prices were too low. We couldn't afford to keep employees when there is no job for them.

"Some people like it though. They get used to it. They know that in wintertime they have a break--a couple of weeks, a couple of months-- and actually they love it. But for others it is more difficult and, of course, on the human side of it, it's a difficult period."

She says the company takes care of ex-employees. "Every time we lay off workers, we'll make sure everyone knows what to do, where to go, and that they could call if they have problems or questions, and they actually do it. We're here to help them out."

She admits yielding the axe affects her. "For me, they are my employees," she says. "And I know them and I know what they're going through, and I sometimes know a little bit about their families. Of course it touches me."

Union woes

Things are complicated by the fact that the employees unionized over the last two years. They signed a collective agreement with the Travailleurs et travailleuses unis de l'alimentation et du commerce (TUAC) Local 501, a union affiliated with the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) in February 2001. Since the collective agreement is in place, an employee cannot file a complaint against the company if the union does not choose to take on her case.

The report says the IWC got involved in the case because the union was not adequately representing the workers. "IWC feels compelled to step in where the union and the Labour Standards Commission have failed the workers, continually ignoring or postponing their complaints," the report says.

"People didn't go to the union right away when they were fired because they didn't realize the union was supposed to help them," says Jill Hanley, an IWC board member and founder. "So we're meeting people who have been fired and they basically have no recourse because their time limit ran out. We're hoping the union is going to work with us on this--that they'll take an interest in learning whether the workers really know what their rights are. We want to work with the union to learn whether this is systematic."

The union says they are representing the workers adequately. "I'm there once every five or six weeks, on the floor," says Robert Giroux, a Local 501 rep. "I even represented some of them at the Labour Standards Commission. People can say what they want."

But Giroux commends the IWC for their ability to communicate with workers in a language they understand. He says "communication is a bit deficient. I speak English and French, but 75 per cent [of employees] are ethnic, so there's all sorts of ethnicities. So communication in terms of language is more difficult." But Giroux says the IWC is barking up the wrong tree. He defends the company, saying the majority of layoffs and dismissals are justified. He finds no serious problem with the company's handling of workers. "In terms of its treatment of workers, we have a good relationship with the company."