SoCal Carwash Workers Win First-Ever Contracts
 |
|
There’s good news from the struggle for justice for Southern California carwash workers—carwasheros. In a groundbreaking agreement, carwash workers at Bonus Car Wash in Santa Monica have reached a first-ever contract. The workers voted to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 675 this summer.
Also, workers at Marina Car Wash in Venice, owned by the same company but closed, won union recognition and a contract, and the owners have committed to work to reopen the facility. In addition, workers at three other carwashes have won a union voice.
Oliverio Gomez, who has worked at Bonus Car Wash for nine years, says:
California Sues Carwash Owners for $6.6 Million
|
|
The struggle for justice for carwash workers in Southern California took a big step forward today. State Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a lawsuit seeking $6.6 million in back pay and penalties for the largely immigrant Latino carwash workers employed at eight carwashes throughout California.
The carwashes are owned by the Sikder Group of Companies Ltd., and includes two Los Angeles County carwashes, Marina Car Wash in Venice and Bonus Car Wash in Santa Monica. Workers from these carwashes have reported receiving paychecks that bounced, dangerous working conditions and management harassment of workers. In 2008, 40 Marina workers walked off the job and picketed in front of the carwash to protest their useless paychecks.
Henry Huerta, director of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign, told a press conference today:
We applaud the Attorney General for taking such strong action to right these injustices and recover monies owed to carwash workers and the state of California.
L.A. Carwash Owners Get Jail Time
 |
||||
|
||||
After two and a half years of fighting for justice, southern California carwasheros celebrated a big win today. Two of the most unrepentant abusers of carwash workers’ rights—the Pirian brothers, Benny and Nissan, have each been sentenced to one year in jail for labor law violations.
“Today marks an important step on the path out of poverty for tens of thousands of carwash workers in Los Angeles in the fight for respect on the job for tens of thousands of carwash workers,” said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor.
These carwash owners are on notice that this is a new day in Los Angeles. Abuse of workers will no longer go unchecked.
Durazo joined a rally with members of the Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) at the Vermont Hand Wash, one of the Pirians’ four carwashes in the Los Angeles area.
L.A. Drivers: Carwash Workers May Live on Tips
Drivers in Los Angeles are getting the message: Carwash workers often are being exploited by their employers.
As KCET-TV reported in recent days:
“The next time you visit a carwash, think twice about how much you tip the person who wipes down your vehicle. That may be the only pay he receives. Correspondent Angie Crouch investigates widespread labor violations at Southern California car washes.”
The investigation of the workers’ plight comes more than a year after carwash workers in the area joined together to win basics rights at their workplaces—like actually getting paid. The Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign, a coalition of community, religious, environmental and immigrant rights organizations, formed in March 2008 to aid Los Angeles carwash workers in their efforts to form a union with the United Steelworkers (USW).
Carwash Workers Win Big Victory in NLRB Settlement
 |
||||
|
||||
Carwash workers in Los Angeles won a major victory in their struggle for better working conditions and decent pay. Today, the workers reached a formal settlement in their National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint against Vermont Hand Wash, one of the area’s most notorious anti-worker car washes.
As a result of the settlement, Vermont’s owners must pay more than $50,000 in back pay to workers who were illegally fired for union activity.
The NLRB issued the complaint in late May alleging that Vermont’s management targeted and then fired three workers because they sought to form a union. According to the complaint, among other retaliatory acts, Vermont management cut the hours of union supporters or assigned them less desirable duties and unplugged the time clock when union supporters picketed the carwash, resulting in a loss of wages to workers on the job.
The complaint identifies one manager, Manuel Reyes, who, it says, threatened employees on multiple occasions with bullets, a machete and a combat knife. The NLRB also charged Reyes with similarly threatening two union organizers with a side-handle billy club in front of carwash employees.
Justice for Car Wash Workers Too Radical for L.A.
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
|
Looks like a billboard supporting workers’ rights is too controversial for the corporate hacks who seem to run Los Angeles.
The billboard, outside the Vermont Hand Wash in downtown L.A., carried this “radical” statement: “Wash Away Injustice! Support Carwash Workers.” Before it was unveiled, the Vermont Hand Wash, one of the most notorious anti-worker car washes in the city, pressured CBS Billboard to pull it down before a rally took place in support of car wash workers who are fighting to join a union to improve conditions in the industry. Nevermind that the language and design of the billboard had been approved in advance.
As the workers took down the sign, car wash workers and their supporters chanted, “Shame on you!” and “Don’t take it down!” The rally, with hundreds of workers in the Los Angeles area joining AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, members of Congress and local union, clergy and community leaders for the unveiling, carried on below the symbolically blank billboard.
Henry Huerta, director of the Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) campaign, said:
We came here today to unveil a billboard with a message to Angelinos to “Support Carwash Workers” in their struggle against exploitation by the owners of this carwash. Unfortunately, the company that owns this billboard caved to pressure from the Pirian family. They have violated our First Amendment Rights to Free Speech and are complicit in this employer’s violation of workers’ rights to Free Association. SHAME ON CBS BILLBOARD! AND SHAME ON THE PIRIAN FAMILY!
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles City Attorney filed criminal charges against Benny and Nisan Pirian, the owners, and Manuel Reyes, manager of the Vermont Hand Wash, with 220 counts of criminal misconduct altogether—including conspiracy, witness intimidation, grand theft, brandishing a deadly weapon, failure to pay wages and failure to comply with wage orders of the state’s Industrial Welfare Commission regulating workplace conditions.
California Labor Commissioner Files Suit to Close 9 Carwash Operations
The fight for justice, fair wages and safe working conditions for Southern California’s carwash workers—carwasheros—received a boost June 2 when the California Labor Commissioner filed a lawsuit to close nine carwashes operating illegally. The same day, the state Assembly passed a bill to continue the state law regulating carwashes the nine are charged with violating.
The CLEAN Carwash Campaign says two of the carwashes targeted in the lawsuit are
examples of the abusive practices in the industry that prompted passage of the Carwash Worker Law.
Labor Board Charges California Carwash Owner
 |
|
The owner and a manager of a Los Angeles carwash where workers were harassed, intimidated and fired by management more than year ago when they tried to form a union now face charges from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
In a complaint issued May 28, the NLRB charges that when workers at Vermont Hand Wash began organizing with the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee (CWOC), they were met with threats, unlawful interrogations and surveillance. CWOC joined with the United Steelworkers (USW) last March as part of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.
CLEAN Carwash is leading a major citywide effort by unions, community and religious leaders and others seeking to eliminate abuses and uphold standards in the carwash industry. Click here to learn more about the campaign and how you can help the “carwasheros,” as the workers are known.
Message to Solis: Get Tough with Labor Law Violators
Yesterday, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo filed a 176-count criminal case against two Los Angeles carwash owners for allegedly abusing and intimidating workers, and for failing to pay the minimum wage. Delgadillo said the work conditions “bordered on indentured servitude.”
With Hilda Solis poised to become the next secretary of labor, Art Levine, writing on Huffington Post, asks if Solis will be equally as tough on companies that violate labor laws. Writes Levine:
One of the challenges for Solis is whether she’ll be tough enough in cracking down on such rampant abuses with a Labor Department gutted by eight years of pro-business GOP hacks in charge. It’s not that likely, though, that the moderate Solis will pursue criminal cases against the top CEOs who have yet to face the prospect of jail time over wage theft.
Even so, as the AFL-CIO’s general counsel, Jon Hiatt, observes, “My dream is that the first act of the new Secretary of Labor would be to identify top executives of companies that routinely violate wages and hours laws—and take them out of their offices in handcuffs. The deterrent value would be enormous.”
L.A. Carwash Owners Face Criminal Charges for Mistreating Workers
|
|
The fight for justice for Southern California’s carwash workers took a giant step today when Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, the city’s top prosecutor, filed criminal charges against two local carwash owners, four of their facilities and the manager of one of the city’s biggest carwash operations.
The complaint charges Benny and Nisan Pirian, the carwash owners, and Manuel Reyes, manager of the Pirian-owned Vermont Hand Wash, with 176 counts of criminal misconduct altogether—including conspiracy, witness intimidation, grand theft, brandishing a deadly weapon, failure to pay wages, and failure to comply with wage orders of the state’s Industrial Welfare Commission regulating workplace conditions.
Henry Huerta, director of the Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign, praised Delgadillo’s action.
The CLEAN Carwash Campaign brought these violations to the City Attorney’s attention, and we are gratified that his diligent investigation has resulted in these charges. Vigorous law enforcement like this case is essential if we are going to rid our community of dirty carwashes that break the law and abuse workers.
