Former Legacy employees protesting in 2013 (Credit: Curt Prendergast, Nogales International)
Mexican staff who lost their jobs at Legacy Imaging’s plant two years ago continue to occupy their former workplace, selling its contents as they have not been paid severance.
The Recycler reported on the closure of the US remanufacturer’s factory in Nogales, Mexico two years ago, after the company’s aims to merge with another business fell apart. Staff at the factory arrived for work in February 2013 only to find locks had been changed, and protested against the closure, camping outside to prevent Legacy from selling anything before staff were awarded severance pay.
Arizona Daily Star investigated the situation two years later, finding that former staff “keep showing up”, having been granted access to the factory and possession of its contents by an arbiter. They are selling “anything and everything” in order to raise the money owed in severance pay – around $1 million (€920,399) – that Legacy Imaging failed to pay on going out of business.
Around 100 people lost their jobs, and now many spend their days sitting “at the entrance” of the factory, “hoping someone will show up to buy the remaining gallons of ink or maybe some stray office furniture”. The news outlet spoke to a number of the workers, who are referred to as a “quiet rebellion”, and many of whom have found it “hard to land new work” after being labelled troublemakers for their stand.
Many are near retirement, and numbers have dwindled as some “took new jobs, even at lower wages”, while others are “losing faith that they will ever find the justice they seek”. With Mexico having no unemployment benefits structure, and many businesses “taking flight” as Legacy did – known as ‘swallows’ or ‘golondrinas’ – the “consequences are few”, with plans to change the law not getting “enough support to be implemented”.
This has meant staff have had to “recover what they can, including selling whatever the companies leave behind”, with former staff watching the building and guarding it. They won the support of charities and local politicians, and spent around 143 days camped outside under canopies, making sure Legacy representatives couldn’t come and remove machinery or products.
They also approached a local mediation council, filing a lawsuit seeking wages and severance pay, and when Legacy representatives did not turn up to the hearing, the staff were granted possession “of everything inside the building”. However, they were unable to convince the arbiter that “three production lines” and finished cartridges worth $300,000 (€276,996) “had been removed before the company shut down and illegally sold or given to a competitor”.
The staff are “still considering their legal recourse”, but aren’t able to sue Legacy owner Frank Day “unless they can prove fraud or mismanagement”, and Arizona Daily Star profiled Day, though were unable to contact him. The employees use torches to save money and power, and also “tinker with outdated printers to see if they can get them to work”, while harvesting rainwater to “use for the bathrooms and to wash their hands”.
At this point, the group has only managed to raise around $40,000 (€36,298), which does not even cover 10 percent of their severance pay. Ink is sold in water bottles for around $7 (€6.46) per half litre. In turn, they have spent thousands on the legal battle, but the outlet noted workers “feel their options [are] running out”, and must soon decide “how much further are they willing to go […] they know their chances are not good. But giving up means accepting defeat [and] starting over”.