Many Find Labor Office Slow to Act

Immigrant workers by the thousands file through the doors of the state labor commissioner’s office every year, hoping the government can force employers to pay them fair wages.

Instead, many of the mostly unskilled, low-paid laborers get a painful first lesson in American bureaucracy. They find an agency with too few offices, inconsistent bilingual services and delays that can stretch to two or more years for collection of just a few hundred dollars.

“It’s like a black hole,� said Michelle Yu, a Legal Aid Foundation attorney who over the years has pursued several hundred wage claims, mostly for immigrants. “The system that was supposed to help them is a hindrance.�

Employment is the main force behind immigration, and nowhere do newcomers face as much exploitation as in the workplace. And no place gets as many of their complaints as the state labor commissioner’s office--for many immigrants the only recourse they have.

The picture of immigrants toiling in sweatshops and other low-wage industries is a familiar one. But unseen is what happens to those workers--legal and undocumented--who try to fight back by using the system.

Take Ricardo Cannales, a former car washer in Monterey Park who complained about working 50- and 60-hour weeks for six months, only to get paid about $1 an hour.

After filing a claim with the labor agency for $6,000, the East Los Angeles man waited five months as his paperwork was transferred from Los Angeles to Van Nuys to Long Beach. Then his case got mixed up with some others. It wasn’t until just a few weeks ago--17 months after Cannales made his complaint--that he was called to a hearing and finally got his money.

“It took too long and they never told me why,� said Cannales, who has since found work as a farmhand in Bakersfield.

The most tenacious workers, like Cannales, stick it out and prevail. But nearly a third of the immigrants who file wage claims give up along the way because they can’t wait, can’t make sense of the state letters they get or can’t travel to attend hearings, according to some experts.

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Greg Rupp, an assistant labor commissioner in Los Angeles, acknowledged that delays do occur, but said they were partly caused by insufficient information provided by workers.

Rupp also said the agency has tried hard to make interpreters available. But noting that dozens of positions have been cut in the budget-crunch ‘90s, he said: “I think we’re doing a very good job with the resources we have, the authority we have, and the tools we have.�

The work-related abuses that undocumented and legal residents face are part of the widespread exploitation of immigrants in California, now home to more than a third of the nation’s 24 million foreign-born people.

A review of more than 700 wage claims filed in English and Spanish in the Southland since 1993, selected on the basis of certain industries where immigrants abound, show a vast majority complain about not receiving the required time-and-a-half overtime. But also typical are allegations of not being paid at all, paid late or with checks that bounce.

Alejandro Diaz, 24, a yard worker in Rialto, said his employer deducted $123 from his paycheck after a leaf blower was stolen from the back of the company truck. When Diaz complained to the labor commissioner, his employer returned the money.

But Diaz said a co-worker who is an undocumented immigrant and who also got a similar paycheck deduction wasn’t so lucky. He did not want to file a claim, afraid it could cost him his job or even deportation.

While undocumented workers are more reluctant to go to the state, many of them do file claims. Like the police and other government agencies, the labor commissioner is supposed to help all workers regardless of legal status.

But a broad review of cases and agency statistics, along with interviews with dozens of workers, employee representatives and current and former government investigators, paint a picture of an agency that, if it were a business, would be heading toward bankruptcy.

* The agency routinely misses statutory deadlines for processing claims. Hearings are supposed to be held within four months, and cases closed soon after. But in the Los Angeles area, more than one-fifth of the workers waited at least one year for results, according to 1994 data, the latest available.

* Half of the agency’s 10 service centers in the Southland have been closed in the ‘90s, including an important hearing office in downtown Los Angeles. That has been a prime cause for a sharp drop in wage-claim filings, from 68,000 in 1990 to 44,000 in 1995.

* Non-English-speaking workers sometimes are lost because the agency doesn’t consistently provide bilingual letters or services. Said Regula Aguilar, an Orange County construction laborer who filed his complaint in Spanish: “I had to take my letters to my neighbor, who would translate for me.�

* Even when cases are decided relatively quickly, months or years can drag on before people collect their wages because the agency has weak enforcement power. Joo Ho Lee won a judgment for $1,621 in March 1994. But the former secretary didn’t get the full amount until June 1996--and only after paying more than $150 in outside legal fees.

To worker advocates who believe exploitation of immigrant labor has risen sharply in California, the inadequacies of the system are all the more troubling.

Immigrant workers are less likely than those born in the United States to be represented by labor unions, which only now are beginning to organize them. At the same time, government enforcement of labor laws has declined.

“They’re extremely vulnerable and even more so these days because of the anti-immigrant sentiments,� said Robin Tomar, a consultant at the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations. “A lot of it contributes to a climate of fear [and] isolation, and in the end it makes them perfect targets.�

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But government budget cuts and changing priorities and politics have reduced broad-based labor law enforcement. Since the early ‘90s, state and federal officials have put much of their resources into tackling two industries, garment and agriculture, and that has left gaping holes in enforcement in other businesses.

“There are huge abuses in construction, restaurant, janitor and security guard [industries] which aren’t getting the attention,� said Bill Bernstrom, a 20-year federal Department of Labor investigator in Los Angeles who resigned early last year and is now a garment industry consultant.

Although California has a long history of using cheap, immigrant labor in rural jobs, from Chinese rail workers to Filipino and Mexican farmhands, the arrival of almost 5 million immigrants since 1980 has dramatically increased the presence of foreign-born workers in a broad array of low-paying industries.

According to a Times analysis of 1996 Census Bureau data, immigrants accounted for 96% of the sewing machine operators in California; 91% of the farm workers; 76% of the maids and housemen, and 64% of the construction laborers. And immigrants are much more likely than U.S.-born workers to be employed at restaurants and as electronic assemblers, janitors and parking lot attendants.

Beyond that, some ethnic patterns emerge: Many Filipinos work in home health care and security work; Vietnamese in electronics assembly and wholesale trade; Chinese in garment and retail trade, and Mexicans in apparel, farm and many jobs in the flourishing service industry.

Often desperate, unaware of their rights and afraid to speak out, immigrants are much less likely to complain. Many do not know about the labor commissioner’s office. Many come from cultures where employers are seen as patrons and government authorities as corrupt. So they remain silent.

“I was working as a painter, and my boss doesn’t pay me. He doesn’t pay me for two weeks--$800,� said Ramon Diaz, 29, during a recent nighttime English class at the Pasadena Community Service Center.

“I was thinking about making a complaint to a lawyer,� Diaz murmured in English, his head cast down. “But I think they won’t hear me. I should forget it.�

At other English classes in community centers and immigrant churches throughout the state, such claims of labor exploitation are common. And many have this common thread: Those who cheat immigrant workers are often compatriots who know how to take advantage of the language and cultural links with workers.

The Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates says its research shows full-time waitresses at the 300 Korean-owned restaurants in Koreatown typically earn wages of no more than $600 to $700 a month, which is below minimum wage. Government investigators and others say that is not uncommon at ethnic restaurants.

The Korean Restaurant Owners’ Assn. of Southern California did not return calls seeking comment, but in October the association signed an agreement with Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates to deposit $10,000 into an escrow account for restaurant workers exploited by unfair labor practices.

The advocacy group, the 2-year-old Thai Community Development Center and the Filipino Worker Center, which was organized late last year, were formed by young bilingual Asians who saw the increasing exploitation of the immigrant working class in Southern California.

These and other groups say they have all but stopped using the labor commissioner’s office because the agency is too slow and often unresponsive. Instead, they try to recover employees’ wages by organizing workers, launching public campaigns against an employer or going to Small Claims Court.

“We realize the importance of a worker center,� said Jay Mendoza, 29, an official at the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 11 who volunteers at the Filipino Worker Center. “The workers we are in contact with feel there’s no place for them to go for relief.�

Indeed, there are few places where low-wage workers can turn to remedy wage injustices. But newcomers to this country feel they have even fewer options.

Although an increasing number of immigrants are taking their wage disputes to Small Claims Court, courthouse clerks indicate, many are discouraged by the filing costs or intimidated by the judicial system because they lack the fluency in English to argue their claims in the few minutes allotted.

The federal Department of Labor doesn’t have a mechanism for handling individual wage claims. Private lawyers seldom take on clients with wage cases of a couple of thousand dollars.

“There isn’t any alternative to the labor commissioner’s office,� said Cynthia Rice, a staff attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance, which has filed a lawsuit against the state for failing to provide translation to workers. That suit is pending.

Rice said there are hard-working people at the agency and that a few offices, such as the one in Salinas, are fairly responsive to immigrant laborers. But on the whole, she said, the service is poor. “The commitment is not there.�

Senior labor commissioner officials say they are committed. “We’re processing thousands of claims. They’re coming in and going out,� Rupp said.

Times correspondent Enrique Lavin contributed to this story.

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Disappearing Agency

Wage claims filed by workers with the state labor commissioner’s office fell 35% from 1990 to 1995. A prime cause: Half the agency’s 10 offices have closed during the ‘90s. Wage claims filed:

1995: 44,297

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Cases Drag On

State labor code requires the commissioner’s office to decide cases within six months, but that often does not happen in some of the busiest regional offices. How long cases that closed in 1994 (most recent data) were active:

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Los San Santa Angeles* Diego Ana Statewide 1-5 months 47% 44% 62% 61% 6-12 months 31% 28% 26% 26% 1-2 years 18% 20% 10% 10% More than 2 years 4% 8% 2% 3% Total cases 12,602 5,408 3,597 51,206

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* Includes Los Angeles, Van Nuys and Long Beach

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Change at Work

As immigration has boomed in California, new arrivals have all but replaced U.S.-born workers in some of the lowest-paying industries. Percent of jobs held by foreign-born workers statewide:

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Occupation 1980 1996 Construction laborer 20% 64% Janitor 26% 49% Farm worker 58% 91% Maid/houseman 34% 76% Electronics assembler 37% 60% Household child care 20% 58% Restaurant cook 29% 69% Gardener 37% 66% Drywall installer 9% 48%

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Sources: California Department of Industrial Relations; U.S. Census Bureau