Day Laborers Protest Fenty's Disregard For Workers' Rights

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Members of the DC Union de Trabajadores (Workers’ Union) rallied outside a Northeast DC Home Depot – during a press conference with DC Mayor Adrian Fenty – Tuesday to demand the Mayor follow through with greater enforcement of unpaid wage violations and protect workers’ rights. “Wage theft is a chronic and severe form of exploitation of day laborers,” including workers in Metro DC, says Sarahi Uribe of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “Every day, laborers are either completely denied wages for work performed or underpaid.” While the Mayor has significant power to enforce the Minimum Wage Act, workers’ rights groups and their advocates claim that the Mayor has done little to address the problem. “The Office of Wage-Hour simply has no teeth,” says Pedro Cruz, day laborer organizer with DC Jobs with Justice. “For years we tried to broach this issue with the Mayor, to no avail.” Jimmy Alvarado, member of the DC Workers’ Union, says he has tried to get the city to help him recoup stolen wages several times but has received little help. “I have yet to see one cent of my wages, and in the meantime can’t afford to keep taking time off to visit the office,” says Alvarado. “It’s time for the Mayor to do the right thing,” says Cruz “to improve the quality of services provided, extend outreach to the immigrant community, enforce the existing wage and hour regulation, prosecute those employers who violate the regulation, and shift the burden of proof away from the victim and onto the perpetrator.”