GAGE PARK — Current and former employees at a Gage Park pizzeria are suing the business, saying it didn’t pay them fairly for hourly work, overtime and expenses.
Workers from Naty’s Pizza, 5129 S. Kedzie Ave., were joined by members of local workers rights organization Arise Chicago and attorney Karen Engelhardt for a Wednesday news conference outside the pizzeria to bring awareness to their lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims Naty’s Pizza violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Illinois Minimum Wage Law, the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act and the Chicago Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Act by not paying employees a minimum wage, not paying them overtime and not fairly reimbursing their expenses.
Asael Espinosa, who’s worked at Naty’s Pizza for more than 10 years, said he stocks merchandise, cleans and does snow removal in addition to making deliveries, and he can sometimes work up to 14 hours.
Because Espinosa is wrongly considered an independent contractor, he is paid a flat fee for each delivery and isn’t paid for the hourly work he’s required to do outside of that, he said. For the past six months, his delivery pay has been $4 per hour, but for years prior it was $3, he said.
“They are putting us to work,” Espinosa, 46, said in Spanish. “In the 14 hours we’re working, we don’t receive any compensation besides the cost of deliveries we make. We’re here exercising our rights, demanding they pay us in accordance with the law.”
Espinosa said he still works at Naty’s...
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