Labor board officials allege El Milagro in Chicago threatened workers for organizing

Local tortilleria El Milagro told workers they could lose their jobs if they engaged in collective action, labor board officials alleged in a complaint filed Wednesday.

Chicago officials with the National Labor Relations Board found merit to allegations that El Milagro threatened employees with the loss of their jobs, vacations or other benefits if they continued to engage in concerted action, or that tortilla production facilities could close. The complaint alleges that in one instance, El Milagro threatened workers via the company’s immigration attorney.

The case will now go to trial at the NLRB. A hearing before an administrative law judge is scheduled in July.

The complaint comes after employees at El Milagro, along with workers’ center Arise Chicago, filed charges alleging labor law violations with the NLRB. Many of the instances described in the complaint allegedly occurred in September and October of 2021, around the time when workers at two of the company’s production facilities walked out in protest of what they described as low pay and unsafe working conditions.

The complaint alleges, for instance, that El Milagro beefed up its security presence at tortilla-making facilities in September and October of that year in response to organizing by workers.

The company also allegedly told employees not to bring in a union and threatened them with “unspecified reprisals” if they continued to refer others to Arise Chicago, the workers’ center that has supported the employees’ organizing campaigns.

In a statement, El Milagro said it could not comment on an active case but looked “forward to rebutting these false claims.”

“El Milagro maintains high ethical standards, values employees and respects their rights in the workplace,” the statement read.

Pedro Manzanares was one of the workers who raised concerns of violations in the workplace in 2021 and encouraged his co-workers to join a walkout to demand improved pay and working conditions.

Since then, many “positive” changes have happened, said Manzanares, who has been with the company nearly 20 years as part of the packaging department.

“Even if the company does not want to recognize that the changes have happened thanks to our efforts, there have been positive changes,” he said in Spanish.

Last spring, workers at El Milagro said they had secured a slate of improvements in wages and working conditions after months of organizing, including no longer being required to work seven days in a row and the addition of air conditioning in lunchrooms. At the time, El Milagro denied the wage increases were the result of workers’ collective action.

In a statement, Arise Executive Director the Rev. C.J. Hawking said the workers’ center believed “El Milagro will have to answer for what we believe are clear legal violations of their workers’ rights.”

El Milagro has previously been the subject of complaints filed with the state’s labor department.

In March 2022, the Illinois Department of Labor found El Milagro had committed “flagrant” violations of state labor law because employees regularly worked without required meal breaks. The department referred the case to the Illinois attorney general’s office because El Milagro had not demonstrated that it had come into compliance with the law or paid an associated fine of about $11,000.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said it had reviewed the labor department’s findings and had found no “provable criminal violations” in the case. “The burden of proof for criminal prosecution is higher and requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” the spokesperson said.

Other complaints filed by workers with the labor department and the city’s Office of Labor Standards remain open.

Last year, an El Milagro worker filed a complaint with the labor department alleging El Milagro kept tips given to workers at its three taquerias in exchange for giving employees a free meal once a month. That case is an “ongoing investigation,” department spokesperson Paul Cicchini told the Tribune.

El Milagro said it could not comment on an active case.

Elisa Sledzinska, a spokesperson for the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, said the department does not comment on pending OLS investigations.

In December, El Milagro filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB against Arise. Hawking, of Arise, described that charge as “completely frivolous.”

larodriguez@chicagotribune.com

tasoglin@chicagotribune.com