Immigrant Workers Protest Alleged Wage Theft

Immigrant workers spoke out against alleged wage theft and on-the-job abuse at a City Hall press conference focused on beefing up whistleblower protections.

That press conference took place on the second floor of 165 Church St. on Thursday evening. 

The event was organized by Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Nosotras (Women United), and Recovery For All CT under the Desde Abajo Labor Enforcement (DALE) campaign, which seeks to increase visibility of workplace abuse and win respect and protections for immigrant workers. ULA, a longtime local immigrant rights advocacy group, is one of 67 organizations across the nation that make up the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. 

Thursday’s presser took place one day before President Joe Biden’s announcement on Friday that the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a new streamlined process for undocumented immigrants who are victims or witnesses of labor exploitation to apply for a so-called ​“deferred action request.” That’s a process which temporarily protects workers from deportation and provides them with temporary work authorizations.

ULA Community Organizing Director John Lugo emceed Thursday’s event with Megan Fountain serving as a Spanish-to-English translator.

NDLON member Debora Gonzalez introduced the origins of deferred action for laborers, which first started in Las Vegas with a small group of workers and wage theft victims who applied for deferred action. Out of those applicants, 13 of them were awarded deferred action by the Department of Homeland Security, Gonzalez said. 

She said that, in October 2021, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Immigrant Work organized nationwide to make visible a crisis of workplace abuse facing migrant workers. Under the banner of the DALE Campaign, it pushed forward the conversation on that issue alongside the Biden Administration. 

In July of last year, the U.S. Department of Labor took a first step in announcing department guidelines for immigrant workers to obtain protections – or ​“deferred action” – to advance workplace rights. The federal Department of Homeland Security, however, hasn’t taken a clear public position on that policy, until now. 

Jose Luis, a former chef at the now-closed Miya’s Sushi restaurant on Howe Street, claimed on Thursday that he wasn’t paid overtime for the 18 years he worked at the popular local restaurant before its closure in 2020. He said he’s faced retaliation because of how outspoken he’s been about collecting that unpaid overtime. 

Lugo spoke on Thursday about coordinating pickets alongside ULA members outside the closed storefront last summer. He said he was arrested by city police in August under a warrant for alleged disorderly conduct and criminal mischief. He has suspected that that arrest is somehow related to ULA’s protests at Miya’s. (Click here to read a Yale Daily News article about that case and a related protest.)

“So retaliation is real. This is why workers often don’t speak out about wage theft. And this is why we need whistleblower protections,” Fountain said, translating for Luis.

In a followup phone call with the Independent, Bun Lai, whose family used to run Miya’s, said that Jose Luis’s allegations were ​“false.” He said that he has compared the restaurant’s official payroll records with information provided by Jose Luis claiming to show hours he worked and wasn’t adequately paid for. Lai said those records do not line up. He also said he has invited Jose Luis to file a formal complaint with the state if he’d like to pursue this matter further. Lai and his colleague Greg Grinberg also criticized what they described as vandalism of the former Miya’s restaurant building, and said those actions undercut ULA’s case and credibility in this matter.

Bella, who declined to give her last name out of a concern for employer retaliation, represented a group of roughly 25 construction workers who claim they’re owed between four to six weeks of unpaid wages. Bella said on Thursday she herself is owed seven weeks of unpaid wages. 

The group Bella represents has a mix of male and female construction workers. She said on Thursday she seeks to provide representation and advocacy for women construction workers in particular because women often have a harder time speaking out about workplace misconduct.

Bella said she’s had to take out loans to make up for money lost to unpaid wages. That means she’ll have to pay back both principal and interest, she said. 

“When we go to work, the employer says you have to be on time. And we need the Biden Administration to be on time. We can’t wait to wait forever for this to happen,” Fountain said, translating Bella’s Spanish into English. 

“We may not be citizens but we are human beings. We are supporting our children. We’re supporting our mothers and our fathers.”

James Bhandary-Alexander, a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School and former New Haven legal aid attorney, recounted his and his students’ experience representing a Guatemalan woman who spoke out against sexual assault and workplace abuse at her New Haven workplace.

He said that she described a dangerous moment when she and her coworkers were instructed to go underneath a machine that had already torn off one of her coworkers’ fingers. When she and her coworkers protested, Bhandary-Alexander said, she was threatened with deportation. 

“She had been calm the entire hearing,” Bhandary-Alexander said, ​“but when she was asked the question, ​‘What was the [manager’s] response?’ she started to cry, because what the manager said to her is that immigrants can be deported.” 

His voice filled with emotion as he described that portion of his client’s hearing in which she grappled with the fact that the manager would rather her get hurt than protect her rights as a worker. 

Bhandary-Alexander described the threat of deportation as ​“a gun to this woman’s head,” and urged President Biden to prioritize legislative action and advocate for workers rights, saying he should ​“wake up tomorrow morning, meet with NDOLN, and take the gun out of that woman’s head.”

Service Employees International Union State (SEIU) Connecticut State Council Executive Director Kooper Caraway pushed for action on the state level, calling on Gov. Ned Lamont and the state legislature to fully fund the state Department of Labor, saying that workers ​“must be granted the same protections and security regardless of their citizenship status.”

Caraway drew attention to what he described as the great disparity between the amount of wealth Connecticut has and the services it provides for those most in need, like immigrant laborers. He called for the state to better fund the Department of Labor to support noncitizen workers and working conditions across Connecticut.

“We have a multi billion dollar surplus. We have an overflowing rainy day fund. We have more billionaires in our state than almost any corner of the world. The Connecticut Department of Labor should be a robust institution where any worker can get the support they need,” Caraway said.

Mayor Justin Elicker was the last to speak at Thursday’s City Hall presser. He addressed the group before him in both Spanish and English. 

Elicker thanked the crowd for assembling in City Hall and for making their voices heard. He built off of Caraway’s call for more state action, saying that the state Department of Labor needs ​“more resources so that they can inspect and hold the employers accountable.”

“And that’s why it’s so important why President Biden” follow through on plans to implement more whistleblower protections, he said, ​“to help protect the people that are working in our community. Because you deserve a place that is safe. You deserve to be paid a salary that is following the law. And you deserve that kind of protection, because you’re part of our community.”