As new Foxtrot owner plans to reopen stores, a former undocumented worker recounts his struggle to find a job and collect back pay

A little over nine years ago, Javier Macedo landed a job at a commissary to supply a startup of boutique convenience stores in Chicago. It seemed promising, he recalled.

And it was. He was quickly tasked with hiring more workers as Foxtrot became known as an upscale grocer and cafe chain based in Chicago, which later expanded to Texas and Washington, D.C. That was until Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen & Market abruptly shuttered in April before filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, causing chaos amongst their customers and leaving hundreds of their workers suddenly without a job.

The stores in Chicago were all located on the city’s North Side. The commissary, however, was on the Southwest Side, predominantly staffed by Mexican immigrant laborers like Macedo, who never set foot in one of the boutique stores. Yet, they religiously performed their jobs to ensure that all stores had enough breakfast tacos and other items that were unique to the brand.

“(The items in the store) were too expensive. I know that because we prepared all the food that was sold there. We did it the best we could for it to be presentable and of good quality for those who could pay for it,” Macedo said. “(When they suddenly closed,) I felt used and discriminated against. We helped the company grow so much and at the end of the day they threw us out like nothing.”

As a co-founder of Foxtrot and new investors plan to reopen about a dozen stores this fall , Macedo and most of the other 50 former immigrant workers who worked at the commissary continue to struggle to find new jobs to make ends meet. Macedo said that his quest for employment has been stymied by few opportunities, with competition from newly arrived migrants who are willing to work for extremely low wages and those who have legal work permits.

Unlike former workers at the storefronts who qualified for unemployment, most of those who worked at the commissary are ineligible for unemployment benefits due to their immigration status.

Upon hearing the brand would reopen locations with similar management, Macedo and some of his co-workers felt “used and discarded.” A group of commissary workers filed a class-action lawsuit under the federal WARN Act, seeking restitution for 60 days of compensation due to the company’s abrupt closure and mass layoffs.

Hiring undocumented workers and then firing them without compensation or prior notice is a common practice in the factory labor market, underscoring how immigrant workers are under constant risk of exploitation, labor rights leaders say.

Over the last decade, however, advocates have encouraged undocumented workers to denounce the abuse or unjust treatment in their companies. Workers of the popular tortilleria El Milagro for example are part of ongoing labor investigations in which state and federal agencies are looking into allegations of unsafe working conditions. Some immigrant workers in the manufacturing industry in Chicago and nearby suburbs have gotten protection from deportation and a job permit through Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement , otherwise known as DALE, a federal program created to empower undocumented workers to speak out and help agencies complete investigations to enforce labor laws.

“We are families, we are not garbage,” a group of workers chanted in Spanish in front of the Foxtrot warehouse in the Pilsen neighborhood this spring during a protest to raise awareness about former employees affected by the company’s sudden decision to close.

Due to Outfox’s pending Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware, it is unclear whether there will be assets available to make the payments to the former employees, said Doug Werman, a labor attorney who filed one of the three class-action lawsuits against the company in federal court in Chicago. That would mean that workers could simply be “forgotten,” Macedo said.

“You’re an upscale specialty grocer that produces high-quality products that are desirable, but you’re doing it on the backs of workers who are vulnerable and who are subject to exploitation, and who were particularly hard hit by the company’s unconscionable decision to close without any advance notice,” said José Uribe, a campaign organizer with Arise Chicago, a workers’ rights organization helping some of the displaced workers.

It is unclear how or if Foxtrot and Dom’s hired immigrant workers directly. Neither Outfox Hospitality, their parent company, nor their lawyer Dennis A. Meloro responded to several requests for comments on the class-action lawsuits or the ongoing investigation by the Illinois Department of Labor.

The commissary was initially based out of a small North Side warehouse before establishing one at 2136 S. Peoria St., in the Pilsen neighborhood. It went from about seven employees to more than 50 over the last decade, the majority of whom were immigrants and people without legal status to work in the U.S., Macedo said.

He initially landed a job as a line cook after one of his colleagues referred him to the job in 2015. Within two years, as the company opened more stores throughout Chicago and other states, he was promoted to assembly supervisor, managing a group of workers.

A week before news broke that the stores were shutting down, there was a meeting at the commissary with management, Macedo recalled. He was told he could not submit orders for more ingredients or other items.

“I thought that was strange, but I kept my team focused, doing their job as usual,” Macedo said, trusting that if the company was changing, his top manager would let them know. After all, he had been one of the workers key to the success of the boutique items sold at the Foxtrot stores.

On April 23, however, right before lunchtime at 11 a.m., top management at the commissary called everyone to a meeting and broke the news that the company had closed, no one had a job anymore and they had to leave immediately.

“Everyone was in complete shock,” Macedo said. They knew they would no longer have the paycheck they counted on to pay for rent and groceries, he said. Most of the workers were heads of households and only 10 out of the 50 workers were eligible for unemployment benefits.

There was no notice to find a new job. Macedo believes that the owners of the company knew that most of the workers at the commissary did not have legal documents to work and that their job with them was their livelihood.

“But they didn’t care, because they’re people with money that just use us and take advantage of a system that takes advantage of the vulnerability of immigrant workers,” Macedo said.

Most immigrant workers remain in the shadows despite experiencing exploitation, wage theft or other abuse because they fear deportation, a common misconception in the undocumented community and one that corporations, like Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen, take advantage of, Uribe said.

Though there are state and federal laws that protect workers regardless of their immigration status, most workers don’t know about the laws due to a language barrier or simply because they don’t know where to find the resources to seek help, Uribe said.

A plea to Biden from longtime undocumented immigrants in Chicago: ‘Please don’t forget about us, we need job permits too’

Hiring immigrants without legal permission to work in the country is a common and widely known practice across many industries. Undocumented workers often use false Social Security numbers or green cards to get a job. Some companies pay via middlemen like labor contractors or staffing agencies to reduce the direct involvement of the company.

Most workers then file their taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, a tax processing number only available for certain nonresident and resident aliens, their spouses and dependents who cannot get a Social Security number.

Adela Maravilla used to prepare Foxtrot’s signature tacos. More than 1,000 a day, she recalled. It was her day off when managers told Macedo and her co-workers that the company was shutting down.

She got a phone call from her supervisor and after hearing the news she began to cry. The single mother of three had been working at the commissary for about two years and her family was very much dependent on it.

But Maravilla did not cry only because she was frustrated about the uncertainty she would face; she cried knowing that most of her co-workers would not even get unemployment or other financial support while they searched for a new job.

“I know how that feels,” she said.

Though Maravilla is now a U.S. citizen, for many years she worked under the table to get her kids through school and college. She said she took a stand for her co-workers because many of them fear to speak out publicly.

“I want people to know who was really behind those fancy and expensive stores,” Maravilla said.

It’s been three months since Macedo lost his job and he has yet to find a new and stable job. He is running out of his savings and he fears that he may no longer be able to afford to pay rent or car payment.

Even if he was offered a new job under the new ownership, he wouldn’t take it.

“It was a slap in the face to know that they will reopen stores,” Macedo said.

“But who will make the breakfast tacos?” Maravilla asked.

According to a spokesperson for Mike LaVitola, the new chairman of Foxtrot, now owned by Further Point Enterprises, the company will be hiring local workers to staff the new locations as they open.

The reopening of the commissary in Pilsen, however, is still unclear. Instead, Foxtrot’s food program intends to partner with local businesses, employing local workers to make some of their previous signature items, including the breakfast tacos, the spokesperson said.

larodriguez@chicagotribune.com

Editor’s note: In some earlier versions of this story, the name of a former Foxtrot worker was misspelled. His name is Javier Macedo.