Thread: MA: State wage laws also protecting illegal workers

State wage laws also protecting illegal workers
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | December 29, 2008

Except for his meticulous records, the fish man was invisible.

He hustled for years in anonymity behind the seafood counter at Super 88 supermarket in Boston, serving up heaps of swordfish, salmon, and striped bass for $6 an hour. What customers did not know was that he earned less than the minimum wage, and that he was never paid overtime for his 14-hour shifts. Sometimes, he was not paid at all.

Because the fish man is an undocumented immigrant, he was unlikely to complain to government officials. Then one day, he took a plastic bag of pay stubs to a lawyer, who used these and other documents to file a complaint with the state attorney general's office demanding his full pay.

To the fish man's enormous surprise, he won.

Super 88 agreed to pay $200,000 in back wages and fines this summer, divided among the fish man and more than 300 other workers, a major victory in a burgeoning statewide effort to curb increasing workplace abuses against immigrants. Increasingly, officials are enforcing a state law that requires that all workers, even those here illegally, are paid for their labor.

"I was just collecting what was rightfully owed to me," the fish man, who declined to use his name because he fears deportation, said in Spanish in his lawyer's offices at Greater Boston Legal Services. "They already pay us a miserable amount of money. Why do they have to rob us?"

Authorities say such exploitation has proliferated in recent years as immigrants surged to 17 percent of the state's workforce, nearly double the amount in 1980. Immigrants - legal and illegal - are easy prey for unscrupulous bosses because immigrants may be uncertain of the laws, language, and customs of their new land, advocates say. Illegal immigrants who fear deportation are the most vulnerable.

Super 88's general counsel Glenn Frank said the company's owners are Vietnamese immigrants who were also unfamiliar with the state's labor laws. He said they had hired people they thought were following the rules. Now, he said, they have paid fines and back wages and are being monitored by the state.

Lawyers and advocates say that beyond the unfairness to victims, abuses against immigrants are a threat to American workers, because the practices - common in cleaning, construction, and other industries - could spread to the general workforce during the economic downturn.

"It's a huge problem," said Russ Davis, executive director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, which, with other nonprofits, launched the "Fair Wage Campaign" three years ago after reports of immigrant workers exploitation. "We really need some major way to address it, and if not, the economy in Massachusetts is going to spiral down into sweatshop conditions."

In the past year, Attorney General Martha Coakley's office has hired more bilingual staffers, made it possible to file a complaint in 90 languages, and distributed a logbook to nonprofits that serve immigrants so that workers can track their hours and wages.

The crackdown by lawyers and state officials is forcing companies to pay.

Last month, Greater Boston Legal Services brokered an $850,000 settlement on behalf of 764 former workers at a New Bedford factory raided last year by immigration agents. The factory had failed to pay overtime and other obligations. In May, the attorney general's office got C-Mart Supermarket in Chinatown to pay more than $66,000 in wages and fines for failing to pay workers the state's minimum wage, now $8 an hour, plus overtime and other wages. Centro Presente, a nonprofit in Somerville, said it had recovered more than $10,000 for workers in various businesses this year.

As part of its investigations, the attorney general's office does not ask workers about their immigration status, saying it is enforcing state law and not federal immigration law. The approach has drawn criticism from groups that oppose illegal immigration.

"No government resources should be devoted to the rights of people who are here illegally," said Steve Kropper, cochair of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, which favors stricter controls on immigration. "They broke the law by being here. They had no right to the job."

Coakley was unavailable for an interview for this story.

Typically, immigrants file complaints through immigrant rights groups from Boston to Springfield, such as the Chelsea Collaborative or the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston. The groups are strapped for cash, but the demand for help is growing.

One recent night, two dozen workers bundled in coats and hats crowded into a chilly room, lighted by a bare bulb, in the Brazilian Immigrant Center. A volunteer took their complaints.

Luiz, a drywaller here illegally from Brazil, said he was owed more than $2,000 for a drywalling job. Izabeli, also from Brazil, said she was never paid $325 for scrubbing toilets four nights a week in a Copley Square restaurant. When she pressed for the money, her boss left her a telephone message in English asking for her green card.

"I don't want him to think we are stupid, that you can do that to people," said Izabeli, who speaks only Portuguese.

Some companies are accused of taking elaborate steps, such as setting up sham companies, to hide abuses.

At Super 88, the fish man said, he was paid both by check and in cash. The check made it appear that he worked normal hours and was paid overtime. In reality, he worked 14-hour shifts six days a week - for a flat rate of $6 an hour. The cash made up the difference.

The man, a soft-spoken father of five from Guatemala, said he took the job at Super 88 in late 2004 after a construction job grew too dangerous. He was painting houses for $10 an hour on rickety ladders without safety harnesses.

"It's like we're worth nothing," he said, shaking his head. "I was worried. But I was also worried about my family because I had to send them money."

He acknowledged that he had broken the law and paid a smuggler $6,000 to sneak him into the United States in 2004, but he said he did that because he could not find a job and wanted his children to stay in school. He had to drop out in second grade to work.

At Super 88, the fish man briskly attended long lines of customers. He knew he earned less than the minimum wage, which was $6.75 at the time. Every few months, he asked for a raise.

Each time, he said, the supervisors laughed and refused.

"I tried to give them the best service I could," he said. "My work is important to me."

Soon, his hours were unexpectedly cut back. Money started disappearing from his paycheck.

Then one day he went to file income taxes with a lawyer at Greater Boston Legal Services - something many illegal immigrants do, using special identification numbers from the IRS, in hopes that it will help them if they ever have a chance to apply for legal residency.

He told the lawyer about his problems at work. Using his pay stubs and log of hours worked, they filed a complaint with the AG's office. He was fired last year before the complaint was resolved, he said, after being falsely accused of stealing food. The fish man has since got a new job in a restaurant.

Frank, the Super 88 counsel, said he hopes the state will now enforce the same wage rules against Super 88's competitors, to keep them from undercutting the company's business.

www.boston.com

Well

In my opinion the fish man at 88 Supermarket has a valid complaint against his employer for back pay so as to add up to minimum wage but does not have a valid right to now be able to keep his illegally held job. The state government should not be protecting his job against legal competitors who might now also want the job. The best protection agfainst competitors would be for 88 Supermarket to sign up for E-verify and engage in pressure to make sure their competitors do the same thing.