THE GAZETTE
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WEGMANS
Continued from Page A-1 coupons, Quattrini said. “Our prices are so good already,” he said. Wegmans has more than 70,000 products, including 700 produce items and 300 imported and domestic cheeses. There is a team of culinary chefs preparing lasagna, spaghetti squash and other dishes. There are full sushi and rice-bowl bars, a coffee shop, sub shop, pharmacy and a market café that can seat 200 indoors and outdoors with a special fireside TV viewing room.
PICKET
Continued from Page A-1 strikers have offered to return to work, as they are legally required to do to keep their jobs. A meeting between management and the workers is scheduled to be held early Wednesday morning. “However, whether or not they actually return to work [Wednesday] is up to the employer and the content of that conversation,” Duarte wrote. Potomac Disposal did not address the accusations that workers made against the company. On Tuesday afternoon, Lee Levine, president of the
The Germantown store has a number of distinctive touches. It will offer a new pizza menu, featuring crust enriched with olive oil and hand-stretched before baking, and an organic salad bar, Grenzig said. The set-up is a little different in the bread and bakery section from Frederick, with desserts first to tie with the larger coffee shop, Quattrini said. The layout helps employees with a more efficient, tighter equipment setup, he said. Skylights give the store more natural light. A covered parking garage is another feature. There is a bridge from the
company, invited a Gazette reporter to speak with him at the company’s offices on Woodfield Road, then canceled at the last minute after company officials learned that the strikers planned to come back to their job site on Wednesday. “Striking is an option of last resort and we felt it was warranted with the severity of the intimidation here,” Duarte said during an interview on Tuesday. “They felt they have made their point and want to hear what management has to say,” she said. Duarte said the workers were not ruling out future strikes. On Tuesday, dozens of strik-
second level for easy access to the store. A large part of the Wegmans store’s 550 employees live in the county, and some can even walk to the store, said Quattrini, who began working for Wegmans in his hometown of Corning, N.Y., and lives in New Market. The culinary team alone has 180 full- and part-time employees. The Rochester, N.Y., family-owned company has 81 stores. Germantown is the seventh location in Maryland. Wegmans dates to 1916 and was ranked fifth this year on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list.
ers milled about on Woodfield Road in Gaithersburg, holding signs with slogans like “We haul trash, but we’re not trash,” as trucks rolled by, horns blasting in support. “There’s a lot of injustice going on,” Yovany Ramos, a striker, said on Tuesday, when the workers normally would have been collecting trash from 18,000 homes sprawling across Potomac, Bethesda, Wheaton and Silver Spring. According to Duarte, the workers had been negotiating with the company’s managers Thursday, seeking higher wages, health care benefits, and sick days. When workers showed up Friday morning, they found Form I-9s — forms the government uses to verify citizenship — attached to their time cards, something they had never experienced before, strikers said. “In general, the company should have gone through this process right when the workers were hired. ... If they do have records for some workers, then the timing of this particular action on their part is even more suspicious,” Duarte said.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013 p
Famous Dave’s plans to open in center Monday Wegmans will be the first store or restaurant opening in the Shops at Seneca Meadows, a multi-use center near Interstate 270 and Father Hurley Boulevard. A Famous Dave’s barbecue restaurant plans to have its opening ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Monday in the center. The Famous Dave’s on Quince Orchard Road in Gaithersburg closed Sunday “based on strategic decisions that support our future growth,”
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
“If it wasn’t a priority when [the workers] were hired, you have to wonder what made it a priority this week,” she said, adding that only the company’s mostly Latino crew, which covers Montgomery County, was asked for I-9’s. “It’s a very common tactic — you’ll see it through out country in a bunch of different industries,” Duarte said. “That was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Ramos said. “We condemn that kind of practice,” said Sirine She-
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Felix Rodriguez uses a bullhorn Tuesday to lead the chants as workers from Potomac Disposal protest along Woodfield Road outside the company’s Gaithersburg headquarters.
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said John Spoon, director of operations for Famous Dave’s of America. The 5,200-square-foot Germantown store is larger, seating 171 people inside and another 57 in an outdoor patio. Other planned tenants at the Seneca Meadows center include Café Rio Mexican Grill, Smashburger, La Tagliatella, Panera Bread, Mattress Discounters, Little Gym, Sprint, Bella Nails, Bank of America and Hair Cuttery, according to broker KLNB Retail.
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baya, an attorney at the ACLU of Maryland. “If this was happening in Montgomery County, that would be really shocking because we would expect more from these more progressive areas of Maryland.” She said labor laws prohibit reprisals against workers, even if they are undocumented. Potomac Disposal has a $5 million contract with Montgomery County. It serves about 40,000 homes in the county, according to county officials. “We don’t want workers who work for county contractors to not have the right to organize and bargain collectively. ... We’re monitoring this and we’ll see where things lead,” said Patrick Lacefield, a county spokesman. He did not know if the county would audit Potomac Disposal, he said. Right now, though, the county is focusing on the basics. “We want to make sure trash get picked up. If this company can’t do it, we have other provisions [so that] the other two
[that already collect trash] are required to step in and do the work,” he said. Ernest Ojito, an organizer at the strike, said the workers began trying to improve their working conditions last November. The workers claimed they were being called names and were not allowed to file for worker’s compensation, among other issues. Drivers earn about $120 to $130 per day, Duarte said, and receive some sick days or vacation days. Helpers make about half of that, and do not receive sick time. “Sometimes I finish my route and they want me to finish another route. They don’t pay more for any of that work,” said Oscar Martinez, adding that the workers do not receive holiday pay. Martinez has been with Potomac Disposal for eight years. Union attorney Brian Petruska said employees file I-9’s when they start their jobs, but employers can update their records if they have a good reason to do so — for instance, if documents had been damaged in a flood. “Ordinarily, you get it done on the first day and never hear about it again,” he said. In another labor dispute earlier this year, a company used the same tactic to fire about half of its workforce, he said. “It’s not proper or legal for those people to lose their jobs because they were trying to join with other workers to collectively bargain for a raise,” Petruska said. Staff Writer Andrew Schotz contributed to this story. sjbsmith@gazette.net