(Emiliano Zapata would not be happy with No Evil Foods)
No Evil Foods on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina,
takes pride in being a very cool and hip company. On its web site, it proclaims the following:
“No Evil Foods makes meat from nothin’ but plants. We are makers driven to help
hungry mouths everywhere recognize the connection between food, kindness to
self and others, and environmental impact.”
This is a company with a leftist schtick. Among its vegan
meat products are Comrade Cluck and the chorizo-like El Zapatista. Its owners like to call
themselves “revolutionary leaders”.
Well, comrades, Emiliano would not be very happy with No
Evil Foods if he were around today. With the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic
threatening its dozens of employees much like it’s threatening all of us, No
Evil Foods has insisted that, as a food operation, it is an essential service
to its paying customers, and its workers must continue producing. This came
despite a “Shelter in Place” order from the city of Asheville. When workers
complained about safety conditions, they got an ultimatum.
“We could continue working for No Evil Foods and get a
`temporary’ $1.50 raise after 90 days of perfect attendance, we could quit with
the option to possibly return at a later date, or we could quit with a
severance package of 3-weeks pay (after signing a gag order) with no option to
ever return,” a worker at the company wrote Labor
South in a lengthy, detailed letter recently. Labor South has decided to protect the worker’s anonymity.
A group of workers at the company issued a statement that
was published in local media. “No Evil Foods has publicly created an image of
being an ally to socialists, leftists, and workers around the country,” the
statement said. With the outbreak of the virus, “we were told to wash our hands
more. We were reassured that common areas would be sanitized more frequently.
But as the number of infections continued rising, so did our concerns. With +60
of us working together between two shifts in a confined production area, we
knew that proper handwashing and increased sanitizing of surfaces wouldn’t be
enough.”
This is the same company that fought tooth and nail against
a unionization effort by its employees back in February. It hired one of those
union-busting law & consultant firms that companies and corporations pay
big bucks to procure in the South, Constangy, Brooks, Smith and Prophete, a
firm that sends its 200 lawyers across the South and beyond at an estimated
cost of $2,500 per day to destroy union drives. Required employee meetings
decrying the union, fear-mongering posters, and the usual litany of threats and
other propaganda succeeded in defeating the union by a vote of 43 no’s to 15
yes’s.
On its Facebook page, No
Evil Foods insists that “the safety of our team members, our customers, and
our products is our #1 priority, and we take very seriously our shared
responsibility to the country to maintain the food supply in this time of
uncertainty. Our team is working hard to make sure everyone continues to have
access to healthy, plant-based foods. Here’s what that means for how we do
business: Starting March 16th, all employees who can perform their
work from home are doing so. To ensure the safety of employees whose jobs
require they be on site, we’ve amped up our already rigorous sanitation
practices and capped production rooms to 10 individuals to maintain appropriate
social distance, whenever possible.”
Still, as worker protests grew against how managers at
No Evil Foods “do business”, and media
attention grew along with it, the company decided last week to offer its workforce
“hazard pay”, a $2.25 raise. The action came just as workers were organizing a
petition to demand hazard pay instead of the company’s earlier offer of a $1.50
raise with 90 days perfect attendance. “Word got back to management that this
petition had a majority of signatures on it and was about to be turned in, so
management jumped ahead of the game and ‘randomly’ decided that we should have
hazard pay,” said the No Evil Foods worker in a second letter to Labor South.
Labor South
telephoned No Evil Foods for comments
on this story, and a return call was promised but never received.
Workers, however, consider the hazard pay offer a victory.
“It was a pretty big win for all of us and it showed that if we have solidarity
and a collective voice, we can get the things we want. We’re all thinking our
next move might be to pass around another petition and try to make that pay
increase permanent!”
Now, that’s something that would make old Emiliano happy.
