Bosses treat employees like GARBAGE! Is Libertyville’s Clayton Bolke a Leader or a Boss?
By Rosalba Ceja
Waukegan, IL. – My name is Rosalba Ceja. 25 years ago, I was hired by a Visual Pak in Gurnee where it all started, in a really small building. After being a direct hire for 11 years, I was moved to a temp agency called Most Valuable Personal instead. Visual Pak is owned by Clayton Bolke of Libertyville.
Since 1993, I worked on the lines at minimum wage. By 2018, there were about 300 of us temps at Visual Pak and about 40 direct-hire workers there. We all did the same work.
The permanent workers made about 30% more in wages than us temps. While the permanent workers had health insurance, sick days, paid holidays, and vacations, we temps only got a few vacation days based on our seniority, and if we worked 2000 hours in a year. Many of my temp co-workers had worked at Visual Pak for 20 or more years.
Visual Pak’s biggest contract is with a multinational company called Unilever. We made all kinds of Uniliver products like the Suave brand, the Dove brand, and another brand of lotions called Simple. We blended, packed and shipped these, and many other products, to stores like Target, Walgreens, Walmart and Costco.
I received many promotions while at Visual Pak. I eventually became a member of the Sanitation Team, at one of the plants— but always working through the temp agency. Previously my pay rate was $11.50. My salary went up to $13.50 per hour for the last two weeks before getting fired. Sounds good, right? That’s until you realize that the person doing the same job at the other Visual Pak factory down the street was a direct-hire and made $16.00 per hour plus benefits!!
About 3 years ago, Most Valuable Personnel sold us temps to another agency called AllStaff. We all still worked at Visual Pak but suddenly we were employees of AllStaff. AllStaff promised to respect our seniority for the purposes of the vacation pay.
Last September, Visual Pak and AllStaff fired about 275 of us temps. By June, I had accomplished working 25 years for Clayton. Then they brought in new, younger temps through many different agencies. No-one said, “Thank you!” Just, “Get out! Or we’ll call security!”
Visual Pak said they did not work with us since we were temps, but we sure made them a lot of money. I gave 25 years of my life to Visual Pak, and now I am struggling day to day to find a job. So I ask myself, “25 years, and they just throw me out?!”
When you do the math, Visual Pak has fleeced about $2.5 million per year by using us workers as “temps” instead of hiring us directly- and that’s probably a low estimate. The temp agency probably made about $1 million per year off our labor.
We are not trash. We are workers, mothers, fathers and human beings! We gave our lives to Visual Pak and Unilever. Now we have nothing.
My co-workers and I feel that AllStaff and Visual Pak should at least give us some severance—for the decades of sweat they squeezed out of us. AllStaff still hasn’t paid out all the vacations they promised!
I ask all you—will you support us temp workers!!! Will you help us win Justice? Will Clayton Bolke care for us like a family ever? I hope so!