OPINION: Brooklyn demonstration shows need for solidarity among Jews and immigrants, rabbi says
Over the past several years, dozens of employees at the Best Super Clean demolition company in Brooklyn, New York have been advocating for fair wages and safe working conditions. The workers, most of whom are immigrants from Indigenous communities in Guatemala, do dangerous demolition work without enough tools or even gloves, all for a less-than-living wage. The workers have secured some incremental improvements through the campaign, such as convincing the company to provide basic protective equipment, but the company has also retaliated by firing five of the workers who spoke out and provoking division among the workers by raising the wages of workers who did not speak out.
Like other Rabbis in the local community, I felt called to speak up for these workers because of my Jewish values. Our biblical narrative, and current history in the diaspora, is heavily determined by the communities and individuals that were supportive and kind to us, and those which were not.
Our own people’s history as “strangers” facing discrimination should equip us to understand the many struggles faced by immigrants today, so I was disappointed to find out that the Hasidic owners of Best Super Clean company dismissed the immigrant workers’ campaign as an anti-Semitic attack.
This is a dangerous misunderstanding. It’s time to remind Best Super Clean’s owners that we, as Jews, know what it means to be excluded and exploited, and we can never benefit from oppressing others as we have been. These workers’ demands deserve to be heard with compassion.