Eastern Fisheries has offered to rehire the 200 or so employees that previously worked in its seafood-processing facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A. through a contract with a staffing agency.
The company sent termination notices to the employees in March, a move that was criticized by a labor group, which alleged Eastern Fisheries was attempting to dismiss leaders of an advocacy campaign calling for improvements to working conditions at the plant.
In a 3 April press release, Eastern Fisheries said its move to switch from using contracted labor to bringing it in-house was made in response to a U.S. National Labor Relations Board determination it was a joint employer of the agency workers.
“This finding has many legal repercussions, but basically, it means there is no longer any legal separation between Eastern Fisheries and employing agencies,” it said.
The company appeared to question the NLRB decision.
“In accordance with a practice that is widespread and commonplace in regional seafood processing operations, Eastern Fisheries has long used the services of staffing agencies to fill numerous jobs in its processing operations. This practice allows companies to effectively outsource their human resources functions to a staffing agency. As is standard practice, our contracts with the staffing agencies stated that these staff members remain employees of the agency, not Eastern, even though they may be deployed to work in our facilities,” it said.
Eastern Fisheries...
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