A number of unscrupulous owners and managers have created a work environment that borders on indentured servitude, the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, said. That is unacceptable and will not be accepted in Los Angeles.
The complaint, filed in Superior Court, charges two brothers, Benny and Nissan Pirian, who own the 4 carwashes in the city and two more in Los Angeles County, with failing to pay $450,000 in wages over 5 years. They could have more than 80 years in jail and $136,000 in fines.
After some employees tried to form a union and filed a class-action lawsuit in May, a supervisor at the Pirian-owned Vermont Hand Wash in Los Feliz, Manuel Reyes, pulled out a machete and held rounds of ammunition in his hand to scare workers into silence, prosecutors said.
Bosbely Reyna, 26, a prior washer at Vermont who said he was abused there, said he and two other workers were fired last year after trying to organize a union.
Nearly 40 employees, listed as John and Jane Does in the criminal complaint, said they were paid a flat rate of $35 to $40 for working in excess of eight hours a day with as short as 15 minutes a day for lunch.
They didn't receive medical assistance for lacerations and acid burns caused by the machinery and chemicals they used, and the only free drinking water they had was from a spout used to clean dirty rags, said Deputy City Attorney Julia Figueira-McDonough, who worked with federal labor officials on a five-month investigation of the Pirian familys operations in Hollywood and Los Feliz.
Benny Pirian, reached by phone, refused to comment on the charges.
Mr. Reyna said that friends working at other car washes in the city complained of the same grueling hours and intimidation. There was terrible treatment, he said as his attorney translated. They menaced workers. They cut my hours and gave us unjust warnings against speaking out.
The director of the Clean Car wash Campaign, Henry Huerta, said car washes across the city were guilty of abuse, naming them sweatshops operating in plain site.
On Tuesday, Mr. Reyes stood on a metal pillar at the Vermont Hand Wash and listened to Mr. Delgadillo announce the citys lawsuit across the street. When a reporter approached a woman waiting for her car to be cleaned, Mr. Reyes was standing close by. He refused to discuss the charges against him, but shook his head to say no when he was questioned whether or not they were true.
They can come here every day, Mr. Reyes said, gesturing toward labor organizers holding orange signs and wearing hard hats across the street. We dont care.
When asked if he gives his support to his workers efforts to unionize, Mr. Reyes said no.
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