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Bishop's Lodge settles guest-worker suit
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By Barbara Ferry | The New Mexican
October 2, 2006

Eduardo Alcantar Arce likes his job as a manager of a small boutique hotel in San Francisco Nayarit, a city near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The presence of tourists and expatriates gives him plenty of chances to practice his nearly fluent English.

But last year, Alcantar Arce decided to try his own form of international tourism: He accepted a temporary job as a housekeeper at Bishop's Lodge in Santa Fe. The $8-an-hour position came with a six-month visa -- an opportunity to legally enter the United States that Alcantar Arce says he would not have qualified for without taking a temporary job.

The experience did not turn out as he expected. Upset about what he described as workplace discrimination and illegal deductions from his paycheck, Alcantar Arce ended up quitting his job early and banding with other Mexican workers at Bishop's Lodge to seek legal advice.

On Wednesday, lawyers for six of resort's former guest workers reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with Interstate Hotels and Resorts, the Virginia-based company that formerly managed Bishop's Lodge.






``We think it's sad any time workers have to hire a lawyer just to get paid,'' said Jerome Wesevich, the workers' lawyer.

Wesevich, a public-interest lawyer in Austin, Texas, said he brought the case ``to remind employers that even if you get your workers from Mexico, you've got to treat them fairly.''

Jerry Daly, a spokesman for Interstate Hotels and Resorts, said, ``Interstate in no way acted improperly with regard to this matter. # We disagree with the interpretation of the law'' by the former employees' lawyers.

``The matter has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all the parties involved,'' Daly said. ``Beyond that, I can't comment.''

Since April, Bishop's Lodge has been run by Prism Hotels. Susie Schmidt, a senior vice president for the Dallas-based company, said she could not comment on the settlement because ``the alleged incident occurred prior to Prism's involvement with the property.''

Schmidt said Bishop's Lodge does not currently employ foreign workers.

Alcantar Arce was one of 20 Mexicans recruited in Puerto Vallarta and Monterrey to work at Bishop's Lodge from March to November of 2005 under the H-2B visa program for temporary, unskilled workers.

Omar Salinas Zavala, 47, who has worked as a security guard, gardener and musician in Puerto Vallarta, learned about the opportunity to work at Bishop's Lodge through an advertisement in a local magazine. He attended a job fair, where he accepted an $8-an-hour job as a dishwasher.

Salinas Zavala said he paid his own airfare from Puerto Vallarta to the border and then took a bus from El Paso to Santa Fe on a ticket purchased by Bishop's Lodge.

But Salinas Zavala said when he got to Santa Fe, he found the job conditions weren't as he'd hoped and that he wasn't paid what he was promised.

``They only had one dishwasher, and they needed two. I'd be working like a crazy person, and they'd be screaming for me to hurry up. They treated us like we were robots,'' Salinas Zavala said.

Salinas Zavala said he sometimes worked 11-hour shifts but wasn't paid overtime. And he said he and his co-workers had trouble commuting to work on city buses from the apartments on Sawmill Road the company had chosen for them. He ended up buying a car for $1,000, ``the cheapest I could find.''

He said the company deducted $1,200 from his paycheck to pay the lawyer the company had hired to get him a visa.

The workers' lawyer, Wesevich, said a federal court ruled in a separate H-2B workers' complaint that it is the employers' responsibility to pay for any costs associated with bringing the employees to the United States. But Wesevich said employers will sometimes try to ``transfer the risk'' of bringing guest workers back to the worker.

Salinas Zavala said that after 21/2 months of working in the kitchen, he fell ill with kidney stones and stayed home for ``a few days.'' He said when he went back to the hotel, he found out he'd been fired.

``I had no money to get home, so I went to DeVargas Park and got a job as a painter,'' Salinas Zavala said, said describing the area of the city where immigrant men gather to seek jobs as day laborers.

Because H-2B visas are tied to a specific employer, Salinas Zavala could not work legally in the United States for anyone other than Bishop's Lodge. But he said his experience as an illegal worker was better than his legal job.

``They paid me $10 an hour, and they taught me how to paint and they fed me,'' he said of his under-the-table employers. ``I made some good friends there.''

Salina Zavala said once he had enough money, he went back to Puerto Vallarta. Despite his experience, he said, he would try to be a guest worker again if given the chance. ``Why not?'' he said. ``I love Santa Fe. It's so beautiful there.''

Eduardo Alcantar Arce quit his job cleaning rooms at the hotel two months before his visa was due to expire and said several of his co-workers did the same.

``We were sick of it. It was a lot less money than we expected,'' he said.

Alcantar Arce claimed his supervisor gave the Mexican housekeepers more work than other employees. Employee morale throughout the hotel was low, he said, and turnover was high, even in management positions, he said. ``Lots of people were quitting,'' Alcantar Arce recalled. ``I said to myself, `Something is wrong with this hotel.' ''

``But I'm glad I had the experience,'' he added. ``I learned how to clean rooms very well.'' He said the experience helps him in his current job as hotel manager, where he supervises the housekeeping staff.

Alcantar Arce said he hopes to get a visa to return to this country soon, but as a tourist, not a guest worker.

``I don't care to work there anymore. I want to visit friends and to shop. I love the shopping malls you have,'' he said.

Contact Barbara Ferry at 995-3817 or bferry@sfnewmexican.com .