- SAN DIEGO -- The Mexican
Consulate in San Diego lent its support Monday to a campaign asking janitors,
many of whom are Mexican immigrants, to join a class-action lawsuit against
several of the state's largest supermarket chains.
-
- Attorneys for the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, a Latino rights organization, filed the lawsuit on behalf
of janitors who worked at Albertson's, Ralphs and Vons markets. It alleges
that the stores unlawfully treated the workers as independent contractors.
-
- By treating the janitors as contractors, the supermarkets
avoided paying them millions of dollars each year in benefits, overtime
and other wages, the attorneys said.
-
- The lawsuit is expected to go to trial in mid-June. Recently,
advocates asked Mexican officials for their support in searching for Latino
janitors who worked at the supermarkets between 1994 and 2003, some of
whom may have returned to Mexico.
-
- The Mexican consul general in San Diego said Mexican
nationals who were employed by the supermarkets should join the case.
-
- "This lawsuit is important because it involves large
numbers of our nationals, and because it insists that their rights be respected
regardless of their legal status," said Consul General Luis Cabrera
Cuaron at a press conference held in his San Diego office.
-
- Attorneys for the supermarkets did not return calls for
comment.
-
- Advocates for the janitors said there were 700 workers
who have been listed in the lawsuit, but they said there may be hundreds
more eligible.
-
- Many of them may be hesitant to call because they are
working illegally in the country, said Lilia Esther Garcia, executive director
of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a Los Angeles-based legal aid
group that took part in investigating the allegations.
-
- "We need to continue to be courageous," Garcia
said. "We have had many people come forward and nothing has happened
to those workers."
-
- Steven Joaquin Reyes, an attorney for the Mexican American
legal aid group, said the workers do not have to be fearful because the
judge in the case has already ruled that the workers' immigration status
is not relevant to the issue of whether they were paid fairly.
-
- The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles
two years ago and is expected to reach trial June 15. Federal District
Court Judge Percy Anderson gave potential class members until April 16
to join the lawsuit.
-
- About 2,000 janitors who worked at the supermarkets between
January 1994 and January 2003 may be eligible to join, Reyes said. Several
hundred of the janitors are believed to have worked at San Diego County
supermarkets, advocates said.
-
- The lawsuit alleges that beginning in 1994 the supermarkets
began hiring janitors indirectly through contractors, such as Building
One Service Solutions Inc., Encompass and others. The contractors allegedly
paid the janitors in cash or with personal checks, without payroll tax
deductions or Social Security deductions.
-
- © 1997-2004 North County Times - Lee Enterprises
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/03/16/news/top_stories/3_15_0422_20_38.txt
|
