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Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Contractor relents on firing of Latino marchers
The home-painting contractor that fired 17 Latino employees for leaving work early to attend the massive immigration march last week in Seattle decided Monday to rehire the workers after meeting with a delegation of labor and political leaders.
"This is a celebration for our community," said Jorge Quiroga, president of El Comite Pro-Amnestia General y Justicia Social. "These are good workers, and the fact that they were fired was not right."
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 | Dan DeLong / P-I | |
| Jorge Quiroga, left, president of El Comite Pro-Amnestia General y Justicia Social, hugs Roberto Maestas of El Centro de la Raza after the announcement that 17 workers were being rehired. | ||
None of the workers attended the news conference sponsored by Quiroga's group, but a union organizer who argued on their behalf said the firings could be "chalked up to a misunderstanding."
Steve Bloom, with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said the workers would start their jobs again today and had been rehired with the same pay and work conditions.
The workers were let go from Monroe-based Laitala Enterprises one day after the march April 10 -- an event for the region's Hispanic community that drew as many as 25,000.
Mark Laitala, president of the company, said the workers had walked off the job two hours early and without approval, and that the union conceded in negotiations that "the walk-off was inappropriate."
Over the weekend, said Laitala, "we realized that people are entitled to make a mistake, and we reconsidered our decision."
Quiroga and Bloom maintain that the workers received approval to leave work that day to attend the march and that they had in fact completed eight hours' worth of work in six.
Quiroga said that he didn't know of any other instances in which marchers were fired because they attended the march.
In addition to labor and Hispanic community leaders, the delegation that advocated on behalf of the workers included political representatives such as Mauricio Martinez, an aide to King County Executive Ron Sims.
It was important for the workers to be able to attend the rally, Martinez said, as they were marching "to try to better their condition" as residents and workers in the United States.
The Hispanic community will be holding another march May 1 -- an event Quiroga expects will draw the same numbers. That march, which will take the same route through the Central District, International District and downtown, will differ in that it will be a silent commemoration of those who have died trying to cross into the United States through the Southwest border, he said.
Laitala said the same workers have expressed an interest in attending the upcoming march and that he will allow them to go.
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