I read with utter disgust and frustration Daily
News Staff Writer, Brian Kates’, article titled “Ripoff Firm Got Slap
On Wrist, Workers say”. It is worth a summary review for those of
your readers who may have missed it.
Mr. Kates reported that “A Labor contractor for
swank country clubs who ripped off immigrant workers’ wages and forced
them to live in squalid houses will still be allowed to work in New
York.”
Additionally, “…a settlement worked out with state
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, [and] the Miami-based contractor, Star
One Staffing, agreed to pay $113,000 to 70 Filipino workers, all here
legally with guest-worker visas.”
According to Kates, Cuomo found that:
Star One lured the workers to New York from Florida
a year ago with promises of work in top city hotels with fair wages
and decent housing;
forced them to live in rundown houses with tiny
rooms, inadequate sleeping space and unsanitary conditions;
illegally deducted hundreds of dollars in room
and board from their wages with the deductions often amounting to more
then the workers earned;
failed to pay the workers for overtime, some
shifts worked and training days;
and Star One company bosses removed the visas
from workers’ passports so they “…were unable to go anywhere else.”
Some of the exploited workers were reportedly
“dismayed” that the amount in the deal worked out last week included no
penalties and allows Star One to continue working in New York with
monitoring.
The workers have a justifiable right to balk at
the settlement. Indeed, the deficient settlement should provoke a sense
of outrage in every worker in this country who toils to earn a paycheck;
whether or not it will provoke such a reaction is yet to be seen.
Still, the instant facts and circumstances
regarding the settlement between NYS Attorney General, Cuomo, and Star
One Staffing, gives rise to several other compelling questions that cry
out for answers.
First, are our NY State labor laws so lame as to
preclude the assessment of treble or punitive damages that would serve
to deter the abhorrent conduct of companies like Star One Staffing? The
answer to that appears to be yes, given the grossly limited and
deficient terms of the Cuomo settlement.
Secondly, to what extent did the conduct of Star
One Staffing rise to the level of criminal conduct? We observe for
example, that Star One consciously and deliberately stole from the
employees it brokered-out to work at Long Island’s posh country clubs.
Is it possible that such purposeful stealing from workers falls outside
the realm of criminal activity? And further, that our labor statutes
actually provide a safe harbor from prosecution for employers and labor
sharks such as Star One who engage in such criminal activity? Apparently
the answers are yes, yes and yes again. And as long as the answers
remain yes, employers will continue to abuse and exploit workers with
impunity, particularly those immigrant workers who are especially
vulnerable.
The measure of a civilized society can be gauged
in large part based on the level/degree of punishment it applies to
those engaged in socially reprehensible conduct. Until such time as the
theft of earned wages is considered socially reprehensible conduct and
criminalized, employers will continue to maintain a catch-me-if-you-can
attitude in these wage and hour violations; violations that have
proliferated exponentially in recent years.
However, quite apart from Star One’s “routine”
wage and hour violations that appear to have formed the underlying basis
of the settlement agreement with Cuomo and escaped criminal prosecution
-- there are certain elements of Cuomo’s investigation that, on their
face, demand a federal review by the US Attorney’s office.
Clearly, these 70 workers were fraudulently lured
across state lines from Miami to New York where they were, in effect,
held hostage in New York by virtue of Star One’s seizure of their work
visas from the workers’ passports. Certainly, holding someone captive
against their will and exploiting them in this fashion is arguably akin
to kidnapping, which is still considered a punishable criminal act in
the US.
I would urge each of your many readers who might
agree with this construction to join me in initiating an investigation
by the US Attorney into this alleged criminal conduct by the labor
broker, Star One Staffing.
The exploitation of workers is not a new
phenomenon either in the US or globally. Hopefully each of us can do our
own small part in changing this situation here at home in our
“civilized” nation -- where we must insist that that the punishment fit
the crime.
Paul Poulos