Insult to injury
Employer sues day laborers and La Raza Centro Legal after they try to recoup unpaid wages
Israel Mendez and Miguel Pérez traveled more than 2,000 arduous miles from their rural homes in Chiapas, Mexico, to San Francisco in the hopes of eking out a living. Every day they rise before dawn to seek work on Cesar Chavez Street. And, like so many day laborers, they've been stiffed out of wages by contractors who take advantage of their precarious circumstances.
But their story has taken a particularly perverse twist. After the two workers sought the help of La Raza Centro Legal to recover thousands of dollars they say they're owed, their former employer – who, almost a year later, has yet to pay them their full wages – is now suing the men and their advocates for harassment and seeking millions in damages.
Marvin Maltez hired Mendez and Pérez to remove and install carpeting in private residences and luxury hotels – among them, the Holiday Inn in Chico and the Surf Motel here on Lombard Street. The going rate for unionized carpet layers in San Francisco is $46 an hour, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations. Maltez's former employees claim he promised them only $8 an hour and has paid them even less.
"He'd only give us part of the money ... or would say he'd pay us in a couple of days but then wouldn't," said Mendez, who told the Bay Guardian he kept careful records of the hours he worked and the payments he received. Mendez said he began working for Maltez Feb. 12, 2003. Pérez was hired less than a month later. The two finally quit on June 29 of that year.
Maltez admits in court documents that he still owes Mendez and Pérez just over $2,000 each but doesn't have the money to pay them. The men – who said they regularly worked 12- or even 18-hour days, often without breaks – calculate that they've got a whole lot more coming. According to a complaint they filed with the California Labor Commission Oct. 9, 2003, Maltez owes them a total of more than $20,000, including overtime pay and late fees.
Fighting back
Now La Raza Centro Legal is being sued for helping the workers hold Maltez accountable.
"The employer is suing the workers and us for exerting the only leverage we really have to get the wages back," said Hillary Ronen, an attorney with the group who estimates she has received about 50 complaints in the last six months from day laborers who haven't been paid by their employers.
Mendez and Pérez's first Labor Commission hearing has been set for June 2. But Ronen explained that the Labor Commission process is lengthy and uncertain, and that getting an employer to actually pay up can cost a lot of money and time. La Raza Centro Legal, she said, has been much more successful in securing day laborers' pay by confronting employers directly.
"The employer in this case does not have a business site where we can picket and has disconnected the phone numbers we had for him," Ronen said. "We had no choice but to picket the home."
Indeed, the workers and La Raza Centro Legal began a letter-writing campaign and started holding protests in front of the Maltez house in the East Oakland hills in August, after Maltez missed two meetings and shut off his phone.
Maltez and his wife responded by filing suit in Alameda County Superior Court on March 19. The demonstrations, they claim, inflicted emotional distress on the couple and their four children. They also charge the protesters with "false imprisonment," "trespass," "stalking," "violation of right of privacy," and "defamation" and even accuse the protesters of killing their "pet chicken" – a charge the protesters vehemently deny.
Nonetheless, Marvin Maltez and his family are seeking $3 million in damages, plus money for lost wages, medical bills, and attorney's fees. We were unable to reach them for comment. Their attorney, James C. Bridgman of San Francisco-based Aspelin and Bridgman, failed to return repeated calls.
Mark White, a partner at Chapman, Popik and White who, together with the American Civil Liberties Union, has agreed to represent the workers and La Raza Centro Legal for free, is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit.
"It's a classic SLAPP suit," White told us, referring to strategic litigation against public participation, a legal term used to describe cases filed as punishment for lawful protest or advocacy. "The most egregious aspect of the lawsuit is its purpose to retaliate against the day laborers and La Raza Centro Legal for their peaceful and constitutionally protected activities, all undertaken in an attempt to recover wages the employer acknowledges are owed."
La Raza suffers
For the workers, the Maltezes' lawsuit is more than an insult. Mendez said he had to move out of his apartment last spring when he wasn't able to come up with his share of the rent for two months in a row. His earnings help support his family back home and put a younger brother through college, yet he hasn't been able to send them money regularly.
"Many people have had this happen to them, not just me," Mendez told us, adding that most of the day laborers he's encountered have similar stories. "But they get intimidated.... The legal process requires time, and there are no guarantees. They're worried about their families. They have to work."
In fact, two other day laborers who also claimed Maltez owed them back wages dropped out of the fight long ago. At least one returned to Mexico. And Pérez may be losing hope. "Miguel doesn't have the money to pay his rent or phone bills," said Mendez, who explained that Pérez would rather spend his energy looking for work than dealing with the seemingly endless effort of trying to recoup the money Maltez owes him.
But they're not the only ones taking a hit. The Maltezes' lawsuit is adding extra strain on the financially battered, 31-year-old La Raza Centro Legal – the only organization in the city that serves day laborers specifically, and one of the few to provide badly needed legal services to low-income Latino immigrants.
For almost two years now, La Raza Centro Legal has been operating its Day Labor Program without city funding. It filed suit against the city in March 2003 for what it argued was retaliation by former mayor Willie Brown for organizing against the city's crackdown on day laborers gathering on Cesar Chavez (see "La Lucha Sigue," 4/9/03.) The city contract, which consisted of $190,000 a year, has yet to be awarded.
"The money's been allocated," La Raza Centro Legal executive director Anamaría Loya told us. "It's still sitting there." In the meantime, she said, her organization has had to lay off five full-time staffers – about a fourth of its workforce – and those who've remained have agreed to drastic reductions in work hours.
"As a result, three of our staff members got evicted and one temporarily moved into a shelter," she said.
Ronen is now working with the District Attorney's Office on plans to criminally prosecute employers who cheat day laborers out of their hard-earned wages, Loya reported.
La Raza Centro Legal has vowed to continue operating its Day Labor Program
no matter what. But it's unclear how much longer it can go on fighting
unnecessary lawsuits and operating without city funding. Without the
organization, laborers like Mendez will be left to fend for themselves.
E-mail Camille T. Taiara
