Immigrants working in the seafood industry of New Bedford (a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, US) have a new ally.
The Department of Labor’s Boston and Providence field offices were in New Bedford’s North End last week, formalizing an alliance with the city’s seafood processors and other “immigrant and low-wage workers in southern New England.”
The alliance is aimed at addressing workplace safety and educating workers of their labor rights. It was signed between the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT), a group that advocates for New Bedford’s many immigrant workers.
“OSHA will inform workers that they have the right to speak up about hazards in their workplace without fear of retaliation, regardless of immigration status,” said Kristen Rubino, OSHA’s assistant regional administrator for whistleblower programs.
The agreement was signed after a turbulent spring for New Bedford’s seafood processors. Amid an effort to organize the largely immigrant workforce, where workers are fighting for better pay and improved safety conditions, there have been sweeping layoffs at multiple processing plants.
A watershed moment came in March, when Eastern Fisheries, a major seafood processor in New Bedford, cut ties with its main staffing agency, effectively laying off as many as 100 workers. The company said it was restructuring and offered to rehire workers after properly screening their eligibility to legally work in the United States.
But some employees described the move as retaliation aimed at stifling the labor movement within the company. Some workers said they were undocumented and have worked at the company for as long as seven years, through various staffing agencies. At the time, the workers were asking to be paid a minimum of $16 per hour and for the company to increase its safety standards.
The National Labor Relations Board is currently investigating the incident after a complaint was filed by the law firm Justice At Work, which in recent years has provided legal services to CCT, seafood processors and other low-wage industries in New Bedford.
The alliance with OSHA is the most recent step in what it describes as the Labor Department’s commitment to ensure all workers, regardless of immigration status, are guaranteed adequate workplace safety.
The agreement initiates education for workers to understand their labor rights and training for workers to identify and prevent workplace hazards. It also assists OSHA’s mission of workplace safety by having the workers share information with the agency, which will provide insight for the agency to shape regulations.
The alliance “will help enhance our efforts to reach southern New England’s immigrant and low-wage workers to inform them of workplace hazards, as well as their rights to a safe and healthy workplace,” said OSHA Area Director James Mulligan. “Alliance agreements provide both parties with the ability to use industry and professional resources to make workplaces safe for all involved.”