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Illegal immigrants sue indicted janitorial firm for back wages
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Illegal immigrants who worked long shifts scrubbing theme restaurants for an indicted Florida-based janitorial firm have signed their names to a lawsuit seeking unpaid wages.

Some plaintiffs were rounded up in federal workplace raids in February and deported before receiving their final paychecks, the suit charges. Others said they worked 80- or 100-hour weeks without earning overtime pay or even the prevailing minimum wage.

``People should be aware of the kinds of exploitative situations that are happening out there, in particular with immigrant workers,'' said lawyer Nadia Hewka of Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, who helped file the federal suit. ``Someone who worked 80 hours a week should get paid fairly for those hours, no matter their immigration status.''

The 14 plaintiffs most from Mexico worked for Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc., a Palm Beach, Fla.-based janitorial contractor. In Philadelphia, the company placed workers in Dave & Buster's Inc., the restaurant chain that has a popular waterfront outpost in the city.

Other immigrants who worked in restaurants in Pittsburgh, New York, Anaheim, Calif. and elsewhere are expected to join the suit as early as this week.

They plan to seek class-action status, but would have to try to recover any judgment they might win from the government, which has seized the shuttered firm's assets, lawyer Justin Mixon said.

Rosenbaum-Cunningham and three top executives were indicted this year in Michigan on federal charges they harbored illegal immigrants for profit and failed to pay the federal government more than $18 million in employment taxes. The charges are still pending.

The immigrants say they worked as many as 110 hours a week cleaning kitchens, washing floors and scrubbing toilets. Many were locked in at their work sites and most put in 11-hour days, seven days a week without breaks, their lawyers said.

They typically earned less than the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour or the higher minimum wage in Pennsylvania and other states where they worked, the suit charges.

The attorneys are trying to reach the approximately 200 immigrants detained in the February raids, which targeted 63 restaurants in 18 states that used Rosenbaum-Cunningham workers. The restaurants included the Hard Rock Cafe, House of Blues, ESPN Zone and Planet Hollywood.

``Some of our clients were deported, some left voluntarily and some were not picked up at all,'' Hewka said. ``The challenge right now is finding them.''

No lawyer has yet registered to represent Rosenbaum-Cunningham in the civil case, according to court records.

Shannon D. Farmer, a lawyer representing Dave & Buster's, said she could not immediately comment on the suit.

RCI co-owners Richard M. Rosenbaum and Edward Scott Cunningham and firm controller Christina Flocken face criminal fraud, immigration and tax charges in the 23-count indictment.