(NEW YORK CITY) - For a few weeks earlier this year, Maria Reyes - a recent arrival from Ecuador, installed, repaired and finished drywall at a 23-story residential project under construction on West 96th Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.  Reyes, 28, worked 56-hour weeks in her first three weeks on the job before dropping to 40 hours for the next two weeks.  She was to be paid $25 an hour for the first 40 hours and then $37.50 for the overtime.  Out of the $6,800 she was owed for the five weeks she worked, her employer, KEP Construction, a Bronx-based LLC, paid her $2,600.  They reneged on the rest. 

“They gave us checks without funds,” Reyes, a Bronx resident, said in Spanish at a rally organized by the Brooklyn-based Worker’s Justice Project near the building where she worked.

Reyes said about 15 other Women were similarly employed and unpaid by KEP Construction.

“I hope we can still get paid,” she added. 

The Worker’s Justice Project, which advocates on behalf of low-wage Immigrant Workers in the City, filed a Labor Standards Complaint with New York State's Department of Labor on Reyes’ behalf, as well as for dozens of other Workers defrauded by unscrupulous contractors. 

The Worker’s Justice Project said dozens of Workers are owed a total of more than $100,000 in unpaid wages from five employers.

Most of the Laborers are Women recently emigrated from Guatemala, Mexico and Ecuador who worked on construction projects all over the City. 

“This theft isn't just numbers - it's food taken from families' tables, unpaid rent and deferred dreams.  It's a stark reminder of the exploitation faced by our City's most essential Workers, particularly our recently arrived neighbors,” Armary Pérez, the Director of the Construction Workers United Project at the Worker’s Justice Project, said at the rally.

The Women, Pérez said, “came seeking a better life.”

“They've worked tirelessly across New York's Boroughs, only to be denied their rightfully earned wages,” she said. 

Max Barton of LUINA Laborers Local 1010 said KEP Construction was a particularly disreputable employer, noting that it had failed to pay some $50,000 in Workers’ wages on the West 96th Street Project.

“KEP Construction LLC, wage theft… KEP Construction LLC, bad actor… KEP Construction LLC, unscrupulous contractor,” he bellowed before leading the Workers in cries of “justicia ahora!” - justice now! - at the rally.

“My unit cares about all Workers, Union and Non-Union,” Barton said. “Local 1010 and our Membership stand united in solidarity with Immigrant Workers facing wage theft at the hands of unscrupulous contractors.”  

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: Wage theft targeting immigrant women common on city construction sites - The Chief (thechiefleader.com)