On a grimy Inglewood sidewalk, scores of protesters marched in circles, hoisting signs reading “Justice for Carwash Workers” and shouting “Down with greedy bosses,” “Wash your car elsewhere” and “Stolen wages.”
The Tuesday demonstration, mounted by labor and community groups, was aimed at the squat stucco facility of Shine N Bright, where a half-dozen workers were polishing and vacuuming cars.
In the latest crackdown against wage theft in Southern California, state officials had announced that morning that they would penalize the Hawthorne Boulevard carwash operator more than $900,000 for paying workers far below the minimum wage and denying them overtime and rest breaks.
Over a four-year period, 15 workers were allegedly paid a daily flat rate as low as $70 for eight to 10 hours of work, at a time when the state minimum wage went from $10.50 an hour to $14 an hour for businesses with 25 or fewer employees.
“Wage theft is not fair,” said Fausto Hernandez, a former Shine N Brite worker who addressed the crowd. Hernandez, 62, said workers had often complained to the carwash’s owner, Michael Zarabi, “but he ignored us.”
The $70 flat daily rate made it hard for Hernandez to help with the $1,800 monthly rent for the two-bedroom apartment in Inglewood he shares with two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren, he said. Nor could he always afford the $250 a month he sends his wife, who is in Mexico caring for her elderly mother.
Zarabi did not respond to a request for...
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