Undocumented workers file suit against car wash

Beth Slovic

Monday, July 19, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

Fifteen undocumented Mexican workers filed suit in federal court last week alleging their supervisors at Green Valley Hand Car Wash failed to pay them adequate wages as required by state and federal law.

According to the group's lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, the workers who filed the lawsuit, all men, frequently had been required to work almost 80 hours a week washing and buffing cars by hand. They were not paid minimum wage for all of the hours they worked, and they did not receive overtime pay, their lawyer said.

Managers at the car wash at 4625 E. Sunset Road in Henderson denied these charges Friday. As more than 20 workers, many of them Mexican, wiped and polished dozens of luxury vehicles, managers offered a different picture.

"We do pay them minimum wage," said Elliot Scully, a manager with the car wash.

And the car wash has proof, another manager at the business said.

"Every single time clock is kept immaculately," said Richard Stapp, also a manager at the Henderson business. "It would be easy to go through each case individually, day by day."

All but one of the plaintiffs in the suit have since left the car wash and gone on to work elsewhere, Fisher said. The lawyer is seeking in the range of $15,000 to $20,000 in back wages for each worker in the suit, he said.

While federal and state law requires employers to pay all of their workers minimum wage for every hour they are at work -- regardless of their immigration status -- exposing the alleged injustice to the courts also means possibly exposing the workers' illegality to immigration officials.

Several of the car washers currently employed at the business voiced similar concerns to those detailed in the lawsuit.

Some had entered the United States illegally, just as the workers in the case had, according to their lawyer.

A few of them had purchased Social Security cards for about $100 at the swap-meet on Bonanza Road, the workers said. They had used these forged documents to apply for work at the car wash, they said.

But if any of the workers past or present were illegal, supervisors at the car wash said they did not know that.

"They're all legal," Scully said. "They presented their two forms of ID (when they applied)."

Some of the workers indicated that they were permanent residents in the United States. A handful of them said they were treated well by their bosses.

However, most of the workers complained they routinely had been underpaid. When the car wash was not busy, for instance, the employees said their bosses would take them off the clock, even while they were required to stay on the business's premises.

On Thursday following a spell of torrential rain around midday, the car wash closed early. The heavy rain had driven away customers, two remaining employees there said. Supervisors finally had sent everyone home.

Despite business being slow almost all day Thursday, two workers, both illegal Mexican immigrants who said they were not party to the federal suit, said they had been required to work for five hours that morning.

They had wanted to go home, but were told to stay put long after rain swept through the area.

One worker from Mexico City, who did not want to be identified for fear of deportation, said he had earned $9 in tips Thursday and his boss had made him return $5 of it. It was a practice the 36-year-old man described in English as "tipping out."

It was a practice that, if proven, would be illegal, Nevada's labor commissioner said.

Defending the routine, however, a manager at the car wash said Friday that the car wash pooled and redistributed the tips to workers who didn't receive them.

"We have a collection that is divided up among the non-tipped employees," Scully said. Those employees include workers who drive the vehicles through the car wash's giant revolving brushes and the people who vacuum the cars' interiors, he said.

Under state law workers must be paid $5.15, federal minimum wage, for every hour that they are under the control of their boss, Terry Johnson, the state labor commissioner, said. Workers may not have their tips taken away unless they agree to pool these extra earnings themselves, he noted.

Also, Johnson said, tips may not be applied as a credit toward an hourly minimum wage.

It is also illegal under Nevada law to make employees pay for their uniforms. Under some circumstances, however, an employer can ask a worker to pay for a replacement uniform, if the original one is lost.

Workers said replacement T-shirts cost $7.50. One manager said they charged $5.

Only contract workers are required to pay for their own supplies, according to the labor commissioner. A worker who is under the direct supervision of his employer is not considered a contract worker, he said.

Still, current employees at the Green Valley Hand Car Wash said they were made to pay for towels and other tools. The cost of these items was taken from their paychecks automatically, workers there said, depending on how many cars they serviced that day.

Advertised prices at the car wash ranged from $10.95 for a basic wash to $24.95 for a higher-quality service. On some days the car wash services hundreds of cars, the workers and managers there said.

Calls to the owners' lawyer and accountant were not returned Friday.