Alejandra Marcos wanted to make sure other employees didn’t have to go through what she did when she spoke up about not having regular access to water and restroom breaks as a potato packager at the Kettle chips plant in Salem.
Her bosses reduced her hours, then suspended her and fired her in August 2022 after she began organizing with other workers that year to protest their working conditions, according to her National Labor Relations Board complaint.
A few days before her firing, Marcos was “informed of a work rule in which employees are prohibited from raising concerns or complaining of terms or conditions of employment as a group,” according to the labor board document.
Marcos, a single mother of four children, this summer won a $35,000 settlement with Snyder’s-Lance Inc., which owns Kettle Foods and makes potato chips at the factory in Salem, and Elwood Staffing Services Inc., the company that hired Marcos to work there.
The employers offered Marcos her job back, but she declined. In addition to the payment, the companies were required to train their employees about worker rights. They neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the agreement.
“I’m not fighting for the money,” Marcos said in Spanish. “I’m fighting for the injustice that we lived and for there to be changes so this doesn’t happen to anyone again.”
Two other workers with similar issues accepted settlements in state court and with the National Labor Relations Board.
Attorneys and representatives for Snyder’s-Lance and Elwood Staffing did not respond to requests seeking comment. James Regan, director of external communications with The Campbell Co, which owns Snyder’s-Lance, said officials “disagree with the allegations made in this matter and consider it resolved.”
Kate Suisman, an attorney with the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project who represented Marcos and the other two women, said Marcos set an example for other workers to hold their employers accountable for following basic labor law.
“I could see that she (Marcos) didn’t care about the money,” Suisman said in Spanish. “The money was a little to the side of what (Marcos) wanted … justice for people in the past and people who will come.”
According to the settlement agreement Marcos reached with the labor board in June, a board agent had to conduct a required training on unfair labor practices for all managers at the plant within 60 days. A mid-September letter from the board says the company complied with the training requirement.
Both employers also were required to post a notice for employees in Spanish and English for 60 days at the facility outlining worker rights under the National Labor Relations Act, include acting together with other employees for benefits and protection.
The notice also specifies the employers will remove references to Marcos’ suspension and firing from their files.
Marcos said she didn’t want to be a worker pressured into not speaking out because they were afraid.
“Sometimes they (workers) are suffering the abuse, and they don’t speak up because they are afraid of being let go, maybe because they don’t know about the laws,” she said.
Suisman praised Marcos and noted some confidential agreements are now illegal under Oregon’s Workplace Fairness Act. The act prevents employers from entering into agreements that prevent disclosure of certain conduct, such as discrimination and harassment.
“It’s very common that employers, attorneys, say, ‘Oh, we won’t settle this unless your clients agree to be completely confidential,” Suisman said. “It’s just a way to cover up and keep doing the labor abuses.”
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