Workers at the Bestway Grocery on Annandale near Rt. 50 in Falls Church participated in a rally at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. Wednesday to protest the firing of 30 workers by the store owners solely because, they said, of their efforts to form a union allied with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400.

The NLRB was unable to intervene because of the federal budget shutdown, Karlyn Williams of the UFCW Local 400 told the News-Press, but once open, the NLRB will be petitioned to take action against the grocery, which she said violated fair labor practices. The workers at the store formed a union in late September. But the store owners “engaged in systematic illegal retaliation against union supporters by cutting hours, changing schedules, holding one-on-one interrogation meetings, and threatening to call immigration on the workers, among other scare tactics,” according to a union press release.

“When the workers staged a one-hour work stoppage last week to draw attention to their plight, Bestway retaliated by firing 30 of them,” the release said.