Anderson Says Ex-Workers’ Claim Fishy

In another dispute involving immigrant labor, 12 former fish processors at Anderson Seafoods Inc. in Anaheim say they routinely worked long overtime hours with no extra pay and were fired when some filed for back wages.

Company President Dennis Anderson says it’s a case of the United Food and Commercial Workers union using temporary employees as pawns. “That’s their tactic in organizing these days--to litigate you until you go broke,” Anderson said. “I’m not going to cry uncle.” The workers, chiefly immigrants from Mexico who made about $5 an hour, said orders from Trader Joe’s, Black Angus and other big customers were filled by working nonstop, no matter how long it took. Suggestions of overtime pay were greeted by, “There is the door, wide open,” said one worker, Victor Rebollar, 18.

Thonathiu Sotelo, 29, a Salvadoran immigrant, said he was promised he could leave early when the job took less than eight hours. “The thing that they didn’t mention was that you never got done before the eight hours. And some days I worked 13 hours without overtime,” he said.

The workers said they had to sign blank time cards to get their paychecks, and that Anderson installed a time clock only after they filed a union-funded federal lawsuit.

Dennis Anderson acknowledged that record-keeping at his family business had been flawed, but denied any intentional failure to pay overtime. “We’ll win in court,” he said, accusing Sotelo and others of being paid union agents who infiltrated his nonunion plant to stir up trouble.

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E. Scott Reckard covers workplace issues for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at [email protected]