Fired Workers Demand Integrity At Chipotle

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Chipotle’s “food with integrity" motto apparently doesn’t extend to its workers. When the federal government recently targeted the company with immigration warnings (known as "I-9 audits"), Chipotle began preemptively laying off entire stores full of workers, including in DC. At the Columbia Heights Chipotle, a dozen workers were summarily fired on March 9th, taken into the back room during their break and replaced with new employees before they could return to work their next shift. “Since then other workers in the area have gotten in touch with us, including workers from Gallery Place, Chinatown and Woodley Park,” report Sarahi Uribe at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). DC Councilmembers Jim Graham, Michael Brown, and Kwame Brown “have taken a strong stance against this mistreatment of workers,” Uribe adds, and on Wednesday the workers -- flanked by community members, advocates, and D.C. Councilmembers -- protested outside the Columbia Heights Chipotle (click here for video) and delivered Chipotle management a letter requesting that the company provide them with two weeks’ wages, the amount of time they should have received to correct their immigration paperwork. “As a labor union representing thousands of immigrant workers, we are greatly disturbed by the recent virtual raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on hundreds of immigrants at Chipotle restaurants across the country,” said Jaime Contreras, 32BJ capital area director and SEIU Maryland State Council president. “We condemn these counterproductive actions, which disrupt lives, tear apart families, and wrongly punish hard-working immigrant workers, while forcing all immigrants -- documented or not -- to live in constant fear.” Supporters are organizing more protests and collecting signatures on a petition demanding that Chipotle “Treat Workers With Integrity, Apologize, and Pay Up”. Click here for a selection of photos on Flickr.