Workers fired after attending immigration rally

SEATTLE – Attending Monday’s immigration rally in downtown Seattle cost about 20 painters – all of them Latino – their jobs.

The painters left work for Laitala Enterprises in a Fife subdivision two hours early to go to the march that was attended by about 30,000 demonstrators as Congress considers immigration reforms.

“We weren’t going to let 17 people leave early for basically no excused absence,” Monroe-based home-painting contractor Terry Laitala told the Seattle Times.

Laitala said the workers were fired for breaking company rules.

The workers’ union didn’t agree on the number of painters fired. It said 19 painters were dismissed.

On Wednesday, the union filed a grievance after Laitala refused to reinstate them, said Jeff Kelley, an organizer for District Council No. 5 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

In dispute is when the workers first notified the company of their intent to participate in the rally, and whether the foreman gave his permission. The workers said that, in accordance with company policy, they first expressed interest two weeks before the Monday rally, and that the foreman said they could go.

The foreman, Jose Duran, said Wednesday that the first time he remembered the workers telling him they wanted to attend the rally was Monday morning.

Duran said he neither encouraged nor discouraged their participation. Both Laitala and Duran said that the workers weren’t warned what consequences they faced if they left work early.