When Evelyn began work at New Bedford, Massachusetts, seafood processing center Marder Trawling, she learned of an unusual condition of employment: She’d need to quietly pay her manager $100 per week for the privilege of working, she said. “I didn’t have work, and I have kids,” she said. “So I told him, ‘All right,’ just to have a job.

“There were times I didn’t have money for rent, bills, or food for my kids,” she told Labor Notes, but her manager was happy to oblige: she could skip a week’s payment, and owe $200 the next week.

Petronila, another former Marder worker, described a similar experience. “You work hard, you leave your kids with someone to go to work, just to have this man take money from us,” she said. “No one deserves to be treated this way.”

Evelyn and Petronila requested that their full names not be used for fear of blacklisting.

After talking about their experiences with New Bedford’s Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (Workers’ Community Center), workers filed a class action in October against Marder, the staffing agency through which they were hired (Workforce Unlimited), and their former manager Francisco Ixcotoyac Dionicio, who they claim imposed the weekly payments. Lawyers representing the workers estimate that more than half a million dollars were extorted from them between January 1, 2021, and May 27, 2025.

“[Ixcotoyac] categorically denies forcing employees to pay him any amount to keep their jobs at Marder Trawling,” the manager’s lawyer said in an emailed statement, characterizing the allegations as “a conspiracy between a faction of workers” and “a community organization.” In June 2025, Ixcotoyac paid back some workers between $4,500 and $7,000, signing multiple documentations of payment in which he acknowledged that he charged them $100 a week to keep their jobs. The total payments approximated $100,000, his lawyer said. Workers maintained the right to sue Ixcotoyac and Marder.

Days after the lawsuit was filed, the staffing agency informed six workers involved in the suit that they had been let go from their jobs at Marder in what CCT alleges was retaliation.

“The staffing agency is the employer and is responsible for onboarding, employment agreements, payroll, and its own personnel decisions,” wrote representatives for Marder in an emailed statement. “Because these individuals were not Marder employees, the allegation that Marder ‘terminated’ or ‘threatened to terminate’ any staffing-agency employee is a mischaracterization.”

In the suit, representatives for the workers assert that the workers were “jointly employed” between Marder and Workforce Unlimited, and that Marder “knew or should have known” about the kickback scheme.

Representatives for Workforce Unlimited did not respond to requests for comment.

Breathing gills for 12 hours

The seafood processing industry is notorious for its toll on the body. Between 2011 and 2017, seafood processing workers had a higher rate of nonfatal injury or illness than any other maritime workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Repetitive tasks are the norm, and with them come sprains and tears. Workers breathe in aerosolized muscle, gills, and skin, putting them at risk of occupational asthma. Workers who process shellfish—like those at Marder, which primarily processes scallops—are at especially high risk, with rates of work-related allergic asthma estimated to be as high as 36 percent across the industry.

“You get tired from standing; your back starts to hurt,” said Petronila, who would wrap scallops in bacon for up to 12-hour shifts.

New Bedford’s seafood processing industry has been a hub of organizing activity for years. Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, a workers center founded in 2006, has supported many of these fights over the past decade. “We never get involved with an agency or company without getting a complaint [about working conditions],” said Adrian Ventura, CCT’s executive director. “Workers make the decisions.”

CCT has notched some wins. For example, in 2019, workers reached a $675,000 settlement with Atlantic Capes Fisheries and staffing firm BJ’s Service Company over allegations of “egregious [sexual] harassment.”

‘We won’t be pushed around’

But often, the use of staffing agencies allows employers to evade their obligations under labor law, Laura Padin, a senior staff attorney for the National Employment Law Project, told Labor Notes in 2023, after 100 New Bedford seafood processing workers were fired in what they said was retaliation for organizing. “When agencies feel threatened over labor law violations, they fire the person or intimidate them,” said Ventura.

“Someone I know asked me, ‘Why don’t you speak up? This is illegal,’” Petronila said, “but I was afraid. We thought it was just [a few of] us. It wasn’t until we went to Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores we realized he was taking money from everyone.”

Finding out she wasn’t alone gave her strength. “One worker dared to speak in front of everyone, and tell it all,” she said. “When he spoke, it got easier: it made me want to speak up too.”

Days after the lawsuit was filed, Evelyn and Petronila were informed by a staffing agency representative that their work at Marder had concluded. “It hurt me,” Evelyn said, “because I always did my work like I was supposed to.”

“I felt furious,” Evelyn said. “I told [my former manager]: ‘Maybe you think what you did is ok. But there is a God who sees that what you did isn’t fair. You fired me and my co-workers unfairly for raising our voices. But we won’t be pushed around.’”

Fired workers march on the boss

In February, lawyers for Marder filed a motion to compel individual arbitration over the workers’ claims in the class action suit, asserting that they had all signed arbitration agreements with Workforce Unlimited. Soon after, representatives for the workers filed a response opposing the motion, arguing that plaintiffs were “compelled to sign the agreements without ever having an opportunity to review them or receive a copy of them.”

Fired workers and community supporters rallied at Marder on April 9 to deliver National Labor Relations Board charges to management and demand their reinstatement.

“I have one message to Marder: Shame on you!” said State Representative Christopher Hendricks at the rally. “They extorted their own workers and then fired them for using their rights. That is shameful, and that’s why we’re here today.”

“I’m here because it’s not just about one workplace,” said Ricardo Rosa, Deputy Executive Director of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, “but a pattern, where immigrant workers are treated as if they’re disposable.”

Evelyn said that being a part of Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores taught her “you’ve got to keep fighting until you win.” She thinks about the day she’ll return to work with her head held high. “I’m fighting so they understand we all have the same rights,” she said, “and so they don’t do the same to someone else.”

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