Workers Bring Theft Claims To Labor Dept’s Door

Immigrant and worker advocates with Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) rallied outside Hamden’s state Department of Labor offices to demand wage compensation for wrongfully unpaid and underpaid workers.

Thursday’s rally came after an audit revealed that of the 2,000 workplace complaints received by the state Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Workplace Standards Division, 843 were unassigned for investigation, as of May 2023. 

ULA Organizing Director John Jairo Lugo said that some 40 cases have been filed in association with ULA. He estimated that there are likely more workplace problems impacting the immigrant community, noting that some people feel discouraged to pursue action given how long the proceedings take. Lugo alleged that ULA had to advocate for the rights of undocumented workers to file complaints with the DOL, after a DOL employee told workers that their immigration status would make them ineligible from filing. 

“We are here because last week, we learned that the Department of Labor…[is] not doing their job,” Lugo said. ​“We feel that this is horrible for the working class, and in particular, the immigrant community.”

Four workers associated with ULA shared their experiences of wage-theft at the rally. One of them was Lina Segura, who said she was stiffed of $18,000 for three months she worked as part of the kitchen staff at the now-shuttered Andy’s Restaurant-Bar on Long Wharf.

Segura and her husband Alexander Hernandez had moved from Colombia to New Haven in July 2022. When her employer Andres Pastuzano stopped paying them for their labor, she claimed , he suggested that the family come live with him in an apartment in North Branford. The implication, Segura thought, was that they wouldn’t need to pay rent since they were paying him with their labor. But after the employer allegedly refused to pay rent, the entire family got evicted. Later, in March 2023, when Segura and Hernandez relocated to Bridgeport, they got into contact with ULA and decided to file with the DOL. 

“That was happening during Christmas, so we had no way of giving our child a gift or a special family meal,” Segura said of the period in which she and her partner were not being compensated, as translated from Spanish to English by ULA volunteer Ivana Ñique. ​“We were just in a time of need.”

In September 2023, six months after the complaint was filed, Segura finally received a notification that the DOL had processed the case. In November, more than eight months after Segura’s filing and nine months after Andy’s closing, the DOL reached out to Segura saying that they were unable to get into contact with the owner. At this point, Segura and Hernandez were frustrated and called the DOL to see if there was any other way they could receive compensation. In March, Segura got into contact with her former employer, who said that he had actually sent checks to the DOL through his lawyer. 

Finally, in April 2024, more than a year after the couple filed for their compensation, Segura and Hernandez received their long-awaited checks. The only issue was that Segura received $4,000 of her expected $18,000 and Hernandez received $2,000 of his expected $5,000. Segura said she was frustrated that she was not consulted during the DOL’s investigation.

“My question is why they [would] negotiate my situation without consulting me?” Segura said, as translated by Lugo. 

According to a text sent to the Independent from Andy’s former owner Andres Pastuzano, he met Hernandez and Segura days before the opening of the restaurant in August 2022. After hearing that the family was living at Hernandez’s cousin’s house, Pastuzano offered a job to the two. And after the family was kicked out of the cousin’s house, Pastuzano took them into his own home. He said he did not charge them for their living expenses and initially paid them for their work. 

However, at the end of 2022, Pastuzano’s financial situation had gotten significantly worse.

“Days before we closed we discussed out financial situation with employees and most of them agreed to work and wait some time to get paid until business do better,” Pastuzano wrote over text. ​“Unfortunately the sales continued low and the closure were inevitable [sic].”

Pastuzano wrote that while he was unable to pay the workers on time, he was able to pay everyone except for the two ​“ex collaborators” for their debt, in reference to Segura and Hernandez. Eventually, he was able to pay the two back and the debt was ​“successfully paid.”

“Now I try to learn from my business mistakes and try to improve my life as a person and financially working as hard and maybe harder than before to achieve a better life for me and my family,” Pastuzano wrote.

But according to Segura, that debt was not successfully paid. She said she’s still waiting for $14,000.

Bella Vasquez, another member of ULA, was also one of the four workers present to speak on Thursday. While working at a construction company, Vasquez alleged that she alongside other workers were not being paid. When she filed a complaint to the DOL a year and a half ago, she was expecting that she would eventually receive her compensation. 

“We presented the evidence, we met with them but today, we don’t have any answers from them. Many of my coworkers are upset and they are willing to give up…everybody’s losing hope,” Vasquez said, as translated by Lugo. ​“Why is continuing to rob other workers and the Labor Department isn’t doing anything for us?”

Abdul Osmanu, a Hamden town councilman who’s running for an open New Haven-Hamden state representative seat, joined People’s House’s Joelle Fishman in solidarity at its rally on Thursday.

“If you’re working and you’re not getting paid, that’s slavery. We’ve outlawed slavery in this country a long time ago. And we can’t tolerate it,” Fishman said. ​“As has been said before, if this can happen for some workers, it could happen for any worker.”

Lugo ended the rally with three specific calls to action. The first is for Connecticut lawmakers to allocate funding to the DOL to hire additional staff and secure essential resources. The second is for the reopening of cases that have been closed by the DOL. And the last was to demand for the resignation of Thomas Wydra, current director of the Wage and Workplace Standards Division. In a media advisory, ULA wrote that ​“Under Wydra’s leadership, the department has failed in numerous ways, and such failures must not continue.”

DOL: "Keep Careful Records," Especially When Paid In Cash

In email correspondence with the DOL, spokesperson Juliet Manalan pointed to the broad responsibilities at the Division, as well as the lack of staff personnel to keep up with the number of cases, with 3,047 complaints in fiscal year 2024. Additionally, Manalan noted that the Division currently has only 21 investigators, as compared to the 32 it had in 2014. She said that 2,521 cases have been closed and 144 Stop Work Orders issued. 

“While we recognize that ULA is concerned with wage cases, it’s important to note that the Division has a broad mandate including responding to urgent workplace health and safety situations,” Manalan wrote. ​“Each case is individual and requires wage agents to conduct site visits, time and payroll audits, and employee interviews.”

Manalan also noted that the cases ULA brought forward were for employees who were paid at least partially, if not all, in cash; ​“that makes it very difficult for investigators to track and verify wages or wage theft.” She said DOL urges workers to ​“keep careful records, especially when they accept cash payments for work.”

In the case of Segura, she continued, the employer had ​“partial records but admitted to not having paid three workers for five weeks.” In the absence of records, that admission ​“was critical to investigators being able to establish wage theft and recover full wages for all three employees.” She provided a payment letter from the DOL identifying that ​“full payment was made to Segura. 

“Due process for employers requires that investigators must be able to substantiate any wage bill they issue,” she added. She also said that the employer had already shut down the business and Segura and the wage agents were able to track him down through another court case.

In response to the call for Wydra’s resignation, Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo wrote: ​“We are very disappointed that ULA would even make that suggestion. CTDOL has worked with ULA for years, especially on domestic worker protections, and they know how hard CTDOL has advocated for additional Wage and Workplace Division staffing. CTDOL and state officials continue to seek workable solutions to clearing the backlog; we encourage ULA to join us.” Manalan also said that Wydra emailed Lugo, but never received a response.

“Wage agents are in contact with workers throughout the process to get permissions to pursue, negotiate, and collect owed wages on their behalf,” Manalan concluded. ​“When investigations are finalized, CTDOL sends letters to impacted workers identifying the payment amount, the type of payment (full, partial), and reminds them that they may pursue their employer through the courts if they disagree with the payment amount.”

But as of now, the ULA activists have only one thing in mind: justice.

“Que queremos?” Lugo shouted.

“Justicia!” The crowd shouted back.

“Cuando?”

“Ahora!”