Nurserymen’s Exchange is one of the nation’s largest wholesalers of nursery plants. Until recently they employed a work force of around 300. The situation at Nurserymen’s Exchange wasn’t great. There were ridiculous quotas, injuries and other problems, but workers still stuck around because it was a least a steady paycheck. Then in early July they laid off nearly half of their employees. Many of these workers were long time employees who worked with the company for decades.

Twenty-nine year employee and team leader, Lourdes Patino was one of these 132 laid off workers. She tells us to add insult to injury, the company told the employees the reason they were laid off was because there was no work for them, but in reality the company wanted to hire out of town labor contractor workers so they could pay cheap wages and no benefits. Lourdes told us she knew this because “on our last day, management told us they would give us the phone number of the farm labor contractor so we can talk to him and he could hire us to work again, paying us minimum wage and no benefits. I think it’s not fair for us because they want to bring us back to work for the minimum wage.”

Shortly after they were laid off, the workers contacted the union and we are doing all we can to help them get their jobs back. Help us take a stand to hold corporations like this accountable. A bad economy is not an excuse for sleazy behavior. Won’t you help?