Illegal immigrants join lawsuit against janitorial firm

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070530/NEWS07/70530045/1020

Illegal immigrants join lawsuit against janitorial firm

May 30, 2007

By MARYCLAIRE DALE

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA — Illegal immigrants who worked long shifts scrubbing theme restaurants for an indicted janitorial firm have signed their names to a lawsuit seeking unpaid wages.

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

The janitorial firm had contracts with well-known restaurant chains including the Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood and the House of Blues, and took in as much as $10 million a year.

The 14 plaintiffs — most from Mexico — worked for Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc., a Palm Beach, Fla.-based janitorial firm. 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 pending.

“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, which helped file the suit. “Someone who worked 80 hours a week should get paid fairly for those hours, no matter their immigration status.”

In Philadelphia, the company placed workers in Dave & Buster’s Inc., the restaurant chain that has a popular waterfront outpost in the city.

FULL story at link.

[glowing]

1. hmmm.. see its only a matter of time before people expect to be

treated and paid fairly from other countries.