Tell Marietta to STOP Worker Exploitation
During the last week, Workers Center Staff and team members traveled to an inspirational conference in Chicago, NY. More on that news later…
While in Chicago, we met some organizers with Centro De Trabajadores Unidos, Immigrant Workers’ Project who told us about their campaign to help workers at a Marietta Corporation factory in their city. Well, what a coincidence: we have had complaints from workers at the Marietta Corporation factory in Cortland. Locally, the complaints are about unfair terminations, chemical exposures and the employment practice of firing permanent employees and replacing them with temporary workers. The same complaints, mixed with the discriminatory racial practice of targeting Latino/a workers with the e-verify system, exist in Chicago.
It turns out that the Marietta Corporation’s corporate headquarters are nestled in modest Cortland, NY. We had to jump in. We’d like ask our readers and Workers Center members to contact Marietta’s CEO Donald Sturdivant and Vice President of Operations David Hempson with the following message:
Worker Exploitation in the Southeast side of Chicago
Take action and support workers from Marietta Corporation. In Chicago, Marietta produces Clorox, Palmolive, All, Greenworks, Sunlight Lemon Gel, Final Touch, Niagra and Vim. (In Cortland, Marietta produces the little bottles of shampoo and conditioner found in motel and hotel rooms.)
Workers of the Marietta Corporation Chicago ask for:
- Better Working Conditions
- No termination retaliation for Complaints about working conditions
- Toilet paper in clean bathrooms!
- Access to bathroom use during work time
- No sexual harassment in the workplace
- Safe working conditions
- Safer equipment and better practices to protect workers against chemicals
- respect lunch breaks
Take Action Now!!
Call Mr. David Hempson, VP of Operations and Mr. Donald Sturdivant, CEO, at 607-753-6746. (Mr. Hempson’s extension is 531.)
A suggested call script:
“Hello, my name is ___________. I am calling in support of workers of the Marietta Corporation in Chicago. We ask that the company stop firing workers and improve the working conditions.”
For more information on the campaign and to get involved call Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: The Immigrant Workers’ Project at 708-790-7760. For information about a possible local campaign focusing on the Chicago issue and the Cortland conditions, call the Workers Center at 607-269-0409.