A group of Austin construction workers are filing suit. They are seeking about $120,000 in unpaid wages.
The construction workers say they performed plaster work between February 2009 and June 2009 at the Gables Park Plaza in Downtown Austin and at the 21 Rio complex near the University of Texas campus. They say they were not paid for all of the work they did.
“We often worked up to 70 hours, six days a week with no rest breaks,” said Filimon Salas, a plaintiff who worked at the 21 Rio site. “We were denied overtime pay and were not paid at all for our final weeks of work. We simply want what is fair.”
Salas and two of his co-workers on the job site are named in the suit. Their lawyer, Craig Deats, says at least 20 additional construction workers were also under paid.
Some of the men met outside the Gables Park Plaza complex Tuesday morning to announce the suit. They are filing an opt-in class action suit under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It allows for additional workers who want to file suit to join their case.
The lawsuit comes after nearly a year in negotiations with the companies who hired them.
“Nosotros sólo deseamos que nos paguen el dinero que nos deben y que hay la justicia,” said Elijio Cruz. “We only want that they pay us the money that they owe us and that there is justice,” a woman translated.
A Dallas-based contracting company called GMI, Greater Metroplex Interiors, is named in the lawsuit along with Capoera Construction. Deats says GMI hired Capoera who in turn hired the construction workers. After a scaffolding collapse at the 21 Rio complex last summer that killed three workers, the men say Capoera disappeared along with the rest of their money.
The workers' lawyer says the men filed liens on the proprieties. The liens have helped them receive a fraction of their back-pay, what amounts to about $18,000.
“These workers have tried to negotiate in good faith to recover what is owed to them, yet no one has wanted to take responsibility,” said Deats.
According to the Workers Defense Project, construction workers have a one in five chance of not being paid their wages.
