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By ELISSA GOOTMAN
New York Times
June 13, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/nyregion/13LABO.html
LOCUST VALLEY, N.Y., June 12 — A Long
Island construction contractor was arrested this morning on charges
that he refused to pay four workers $8,360 in promised wages.
The state attorney general's office said it was the first time
it had filed criminal charges against an employer for failing
to pay immigrant day laborers.
The attorney general's office has prosecuted
many employers for underpaying illegal immigrants, but until now,
it has generally focused on sweatshops, grocery stores and other
more organized businesses.
"My office is firmly committed to preventing
the illegal treatment of workers who, by law, are entitled to
promised wages for the long, exhaustive hours of work they perform,"
the attorney general, Eliot L. Spitzer, said in a statement.
The contractor, Richard Holowchak, was arrested
at his home here; he failed to appear at a court hearing earlier
this month, a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer said.
Mr. Holowchak, 37, was charged with four
counts of failing to pay wages to the workers, all of whom worked
for him for about a month in January, refurbishing a house on
Long Island's North Shore and doing construction work on another
building in Nassau County, officials said. Mr. Holowchak promised
two of the workers $90 a day and two $100 a day, the authorities
said, but he never paid them. Mr. Holowchak did not return phone
calls seeking comment.
The arrest stemmed from a task force that
Mr. Spitzer's office set up last year to investigate the treatment
of day laborers who gather on street corners looking for work.
Throughout the country, there have been
debates, sometimes raucous, about illegal immigrant workers and
the extent to which public officials should protect them. On Long
Island, the debate has been fierce at times; last year, two men
were convicted of luring a pair of Mexican immigrants into a car
by posing as contractors, then attacking the workers and trying
to kill them.
While federal laws prohibit the hiring of
illegal immigrants, state law requires that workers be paid promised
wages regardless of their immigration status. Juanita Scarlett,
a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer said the federal Labor Department
was investigating the case.
"Our policy," she said, "is
never to ask immigration status because workers are entitled to
the same wages and protections under New York State law regardless
of whether their status is legal."
The case of Mr. Holowchak came to Mr. Spitzer's
attention after the workers contacted the Rev. Allan B. Ramirez,
pastor of the Brookville Reformed Church, who has worked closely
with Long Island's Spanish-speaking immigrant workers.
Mr. Ramirez said he pleaded, unsuccessfully,
with Mr. Holowchak to pay the men, and then reported the case
to the authorities. "This message, hopefully, will go out
loud and clear not only to the day laborer community, so they
know that they're not alone, but also to the contractors, so they
say, `Hey, I'm going to think twice about ripping people off,'
" Mr. Ramirez said.
Copyright © 2002 The New York Times Company
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