Home care agencies such as CPC and UJC claim immigrant women home attendants like working 24 hours, while celebrity restaurant boss Jeremy Wladis intimidates immigrants for speaking out against racism. In NYC, immigrant workers are uniting all workers against the racism that is fueling divisions nationally. Rather than being silent, workers are rising up against these conditions.

Carlos Herrera, an NMASS member, worked for celebrity restaurant boss Jeremy Wladis. When Carlos tried to defend another immigrant co-worker from racist harassment at a Wladis company event, he was brutally beaten. Instead of punishing the attackers, Wladis retaliated against Carlos and fired him for seeking justice. Undeterred, Carlos has united with other workers to fight this racism by picketing Wladis’s restaurant. Now Wladis is continuing his racist intimidation by filing a baseless defamation lawsuit, suing Carlos and the NMASS workers center for $10 million and using the courts to stop the picket. 

Jeremy Wladis isn’t the only one promoting violence against immigrant workers. 

Home care agencies like CPC and UJC claim immigrant women home attendants like working 24 hours. In August, the day after nearly 100 home care workers traveled to Albany to call on the Attorney General to investigate the corruption between home care agency CPC and the NYS Department of Labor (DOL), the NYS Ethics Commission began an investigation into the Ain’t I A Woman Campaign, claiming it is lobbying. The AIW Campaign has been calling on the government to stop grueling 24-hour shifts. 

Bosses like CPC and Jeremy Wladis feel the pressure from our fight against racist intimidation and sweatshop conditions. They’re firing back using the legal system as their weapon to take away workers’ right to organize and to free speech.

We need your help! If we don’t fight back, these attacks will set a shining example for how sweatshop bosses can continue intimidating and exploiting workers, and make it impossible for workers to organize.

“This is how bosses use racism to rob us, they think because we are immigrants we will accept whatever conditions, but we say no more. Wladis wants happy slaves who don’t speak up, just work,” says Carlos.

What you can do:

• Join workers on the picket lines! 
• Fridays 5pm @ Harvest Restaurant – 269 Columbus Avenue at 72nd St
• Wednesday 11am  @ UJC – 500 Grand Street
• Sign and share the pledge

Become an NMASS member! Support workers fighting racism and for equal rights for all workers