April 12, 2018

Dear Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency (IDA):

We write to you today to express our deep concern over the exploitation of workers at the
FDR Services industrial laundry plant in Hempstead.

We call on you to terminate immediately all tax breaks you have awarded to the FDR
Services. A company that abuses and cheats its workers should not be given financial
incentives. On top of that, FDR Services made false claims to the IDA when it applied for tax
breaks. That is wrong and unacceptable.

Around 160 laundry workers, mostly immigrants and women of color, are employed at the
FDR Services plant. The company launders sheets, lab coats, patient gowns and other
items for healthcare facilities and hospitals on Long Island, in New York City, and in
Westchester County.

Many of the employees have worked at the Hempstead laundry plant for twenty years or
longer, but FDR Services has too often mistreated these dedicated and loyal workers.

Indeed, the company is currently under investigation by the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) for numerous violations of employees’ legal rights.

Here are the key facts about the company that concern us and should concern you, too:

 FDR Services stopped paying its employees’ health insurance last September;
 Failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars owed for employees’ health and
pension benefits;
 Refused to sign the union contract it negotiated even before September 1st,2017;
 Illegally fired nine workers last month in retaliation for an unfair labor practices
strike.

Your Vice Chairman, James Marsh, recently told Newsday that the IDA’s goal is to preserve
employment, “whether it’s good jobs, bad jobs, that’s not really our say.”

But it is your say, actually. You have both the power and responsibility to ensure that local
employers provide good jobs for the Hempstead community. The idea that the IDA would
willingly support companies that maintain exploitative jobs and violate the labor rights of
local workers is morally offensive, and beneath the mission and dignity of your agency.

You recently granted tax breaks to FDR Services because you believed the company’s false
claim that it was going to flee to Suffolk County. The truth is that the company stopped
actively investigating a possible Suffolk County relocation in the summer of 2017.

FDR Services also falsely claimed in its application to you that it was not facing any
outstanding litigation of material significance, and it inflated the number of current
employees at the Hempstead plant.

We believe strongly FDR Services should stay in Hempstead but the company must clean
up its act and treat all of its employees fairly.

That means health and pension benefits must be paid and illegally fired workers must be
rehired. Additionally, the company must finally sign the union contract it negotiated last year.

You should tell FDR Services that it can and must do better for the taxpayers, workers,
and residents of Hempstead.

Sincerely,

Laundry, Distribution and Food Service Joint Board, Workers United, SEIU

Long Island Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

Mary Crosson, President, Long Island Chapter of New York Communities for Change

Matty Aracich, President of Building & Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk
Counties

Local 338, RWDSU/UFCW

Deb Axt, Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York

New York Working Families Party

Local 32BJ SEIU