ine Mexican immigrants who worked as janitors at
Wal-Marts in New Jersey sued the company on Wednesday, accusing Wal-Mart
and its cleaning contractors of failing to pay overtime, withhold taxes
and make required workers' compensation contributions.
The plaintiffs, who face deportation for being in the country
illegally, also accuse Wal-Mart and its contractors of discriminating
against them by giving them lower wages and fewer benefits than other
workers because of their national origin.
The nine Mexicans were among 250 people arrested in an Oct. 23 federal
immigration raid on 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states.
The lawsuit, the first filed by immigrants arrested in the raid, said
Wal-Mart should be held accountable for its contractors' wage and hour
violations.
The plaintiffs have asked Wal-Mart and its contractors to pay more than
$200,000 in back pay they say they are owed for overtime. The nine say
they worked seven days a week, at least 56 hours a week, and were not paid
time and a half for overtime hours, those over 40 a week. The immigrants
say they were paid $350 to $500 a week.
The lawsuit said that Wal-Mart, "knowingly and with the intention to
defraud the United States government and the plaintiffs and in order to
save money on cleaning service contract contractors," employed certain
cleaning contractors, "with full knowledge" that these contractors would
pay the illegal immigrants far less than they would have paid legal
workers.
"Wal-Mart must have known about these violations," said Gilberto
Garcia, the immigrants' lawyer, who filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in
Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold, N.J. "If these people are
going to work at Wal-Marts, then Wal-Mart and its contractors should abide
by the labor laws."
Mona Williams, vice president of Wal-Mart for communications, said on
Wednesday that Wal-Mart did not know its contractors and subcontractors
used illegal immigrants. She also said Wal-Mart did not know about the
overtime and other labor violations of which the cleaning contractors are
accused.
"Clearly, hungry lawyers are converging on these illegal immigrants as
if they were accident victims," Ms. Williams said. "We have seen
absolutely no evidence showing that Wal-Mart did anything wrong."
On Tuesday, Ms. Williams acknowledged that federal prosecutors had sent
Wal-Mart a letter warning that it faced a grand jury investigation about
illegal immigrants employed in its stores.
Ms. Williams said Wal-Mart was not liable for the misdeeds alleged
against its contractors, noting that Wal-Mart has long insisted that its
contractors obey the law. "If you are scrambling to make a buck at someone
else's expense, who would you sue, an unknown cleaning contractor or the
country's largest corporation?" she asked.
The lawsuit says the managers at two Wal-Marts where the plaintiffs
worked, in Old Bridge and Piscataway, N.J., knew that the workers were
illegal immigrants.
