Posted on 12/22/2007 6:41:58 AM PST by AuntB
Martin Coyotecatl-Aca, his younger brother Jesus and a friend, Ricardo Gonzales-Gutierez worked for 10 hours as day laborers ripping shingles off a roof. At the end of the two days, they said, their boss refused to pay them for one of the days.
What happened next is in dispute. The three now are sitting in the Passaic County Jail, charged with robbery and facing possible deportation, according to Detective Capt. Robert Rowan of the Clifton Police Department.
A lawyer for the three Mexican nationals, whose names were supplied by police and who all live in Passaic, say the men are innocent. Edward Sapone, who was hired by the Mexican Consulate, said the men were engaged in a wage dispute with a drunken contractor who harmed himself and who falsely implicated them. He acknowledged that the three are in the country illegally.
Diana Mejia, president of Wind of the Spirit, a Morristown-based immigrant rights group, has worked with the Passaic day laborers and said their story demonstrates how the lack of regulation over immigrant laborers can prove disastrous.
Rowan gave this account of the incident.
A little after 9 p.m. Saturday in Clifton, a plainclothes officer cruising along Main Avenue near Harding Avenue observed a man who appeared to be in distress. He was in a doorway, leaning over on his knees up against a wall. The three men allegedly were standing in front of him. The officer turned his car around and saw that the three men had gone to a nearby parking lot and stood in front of a white van that police said was the contractor's vehicle.
The three men boarded a jitney bus. The officer stopped the bus and forced the men to get off.
The officer said the 29-year-old man who had been in the doorway had a large amount of blood on his mouth and wrist. The man, who spoke only Polish, told police through an interpreter that the men had beaten him up and robbed him of his tools. The police report said the man appeared to have been drinking. Police did not test him for alcohol because he was not driving, Rowan said.
The three men, who spoke only Spanish, told police through an interpreter that they had been working all day in Jersey City and that the Polish man, whom they were working for, said that he had to drive to a bank in order to get money to pay them, Rowan said.
The man said he had never met the three Mexican nationals before.
According to the police report, Martin Coyotecatl-Aca was carrying a large black bag filled with nail guns, Rowan said. The men told police that when the man refused to pay them, they took his nail guns, Rowan said.
The two brothers, Martin Coyotecatl-Aca, 26, and Jesus Coyotecatl-Aca, 30, were being held Thursday at the Passaic County Jail on bail of $75,000 while Gonzales-Gutierez, 27, was being held there on $100,000 bail, Rowan said.
Rowan said that police, suspecting the three are in the country illegally, notified immigration authorities of the arrest, in accordance with an attorney general's directive. They face deportation.
"Even if it was true that these men worked for the victim all day, and he didn't pay them, it would not allow them to assault him or take his nail guns," Rowan said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Rowan said that when the men were arrested they never mentioned any agreement that the tools were to be given as collateral.
On Thursday, Sapone, the lawyer, sat in at the day laborers center in Passaic on Parker Avenue, behind The Home Depot. Fabian Gallindo, the center's de facto leader, was present along with Martin Coyotecatl-Aca's wife, Eugenia Ricoy, and her son Kevin, 4 .
Sapone said that the day laborers had a verbal agreement with the contractor, who picked them up at the center. Ricoy said that her husband speaks a little bit of English and that the Polish contractor spoke a little bit too. Gallindo, who visited the men in jail, said the men understood that they would keep the tools as collateral for payment -- $180 a day per person. The day laborers said they did not touch the man, but that he showed up at the bank drunk and unwilling to pay them, Gallindo said.
"It would be a very sad ending if these three men who were here to work hard and put food on the table, who put in honest work and weren't paid and were then arrested, would be forced to separate from their children," Sapone said.
Gallindo said that day laborers often face this type of abuse, with long hours in extreme heat and cold, and contractors who leave them with nothing.
"They bring us to places like Atlantic City and other places we don't know," Gallindo said in Spanish. "After eight hours they say, 'Just 20 minutes more,' and that becomes three hours. If we protest, they won't pay us, or they'll leave us there to find our way home."
Immigrant advocates have been pushing for legislation to regulate the shady arrangements between day laborers and contractors. Rep. Luis Gutierrez , D-Ill., introduced a bill in 2003 called the Day Labor Fairness and Protection Act, to give day laborers certain rights. It was never voted on.
In 2006, the first national study on the life of day laborers, "Day Labor in the United States," found that of the approximately 117,600 working in this country, the median salary is $10 an hour and it is unlikely they earn more than $15,000 a year.
The report found that day laborers regularly suffer employer abuse with almost half of all day laborers experiencing at least one instance of wage theft and 44 percent being denied food and water breaks on the job. The study found that merchants and police often unfairly target day laborers while they seek work, with 9 percent having been arrested and 11 percent ticketed by police while they search for employment.
Marcela Ospina, a spokeswoman with the New Jersey Department of Labor, said the men could file a wage-collection complaint.
"If you are a worker, we don't inquire about your status; we are just concerned about getting your wages," she said, adding that workers can call 609-292-2305 to file a complaint.
Mejia, of Wind of the Spirit, said that day laborers need to organize so that if there are instances of abuse, they have someone to back them up.
"The idea is that people who organize in some sort of center, this can help them more," Mejia said in Spanish. "Workers can learn their rights through a center and evade these abuses."
Right. Don't hire them, but if you do, pay them as agreed. Keep your word, even to those who might be considered unworthy. Keep it or don't give it.
By this arch-conservative's math, a median (mid-point) $10 an hour (which is wages, not salary, BTW) times 40 hours a week, times 50 weeks a year (we'll give this hard-working immigrant 2 weeks vacation because we're so "progressive") comes out to $20,000 a year.
Don't ever accuse a reporter of being stupid or economically illiterate, because by the evidence above, you're clearly wrong.
/sarc
At one time illegal aliens primarily served as cheap labor in this country, but that has now changed. Now, you have entire sectors of the economy operating underground -- involving illegal aliens working as laborers . . . for illegal aliens running contracting business . . . who buy their supplies from illegal aliens running building supply businesses.
There is an enormous volume of "black market" commercial activity taking place in this country, and almost none of it is subject to taxation of any kind.
On a positive note, this also explains how the U.S. residential construction market could completely collapse in 2006-07, yet the unemployment numbers have hardly changed at all.
The illegals illegal activity is “honest” work.
It is also interesting that there is a call for regulating illegal activity.
The sentiments I expressed were those of a very jaded cynic, not a typical liberal.
“Coyotecatl-Aca” is an aztec name. The native mexicans are at the bottom of the social ladder there.
Read John 10:1. It has some nice words for illegal aliens. :0)
Thank you. I learn something every day.
And screw the investors and homeowners who lost their shirts in the latest mortgage scam!.... I sincerely doubt anyone who had any brains and credit lost anything.
If only that were true...
Unfortunately, some very, very smart people lost big-time because greed blinded them (Long Term Capital Management, as a recent example)...just as it has many times before...and a lot of innocents will suffer as well.
When I got out of the US Navy I took a job paying $5.50 and hour.
I was being paid $11,440 annually, not counting overtime.
I worked for 4 years and was making $27,000 annually, not counting overtime.
That first couple of years were hard but my intelligence, perseverance, and hard work was recognized and I got two raises that first year.
BUT, I was married with two children that first year also. We managed to make it.
True, we lived in a mobile home, had only one car, one television, no cable, no internet at home, didn't eat out much, didn't drink much alcohol, etc but we had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and Christmas presents that year so........
CRY ME A RIVER!
Isn't that what non-English speaking immigrants are for?
Yep. sleep with the dogs and you get their fleas.
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