June 29, 2008


Mount Kisco laborers stiffed on pay

Leah Rae
The Journal News

MOUNT KISCO - A group of laborers from Mount Kisco are still trying to collect thousands of dollars for work they performed in the fall and winter at various construction sites, including public schools in Somers, Tuckahoe and Mamaroneck.

Six workers turned to a local business earlier this year for help recovering wages from the same contractor, Biagio Cantisani of Carmody Building Corp. They gave similar accounts of being paid with checks that could not be cashed. After repeated efforts to get paid, the men filed a claim in March for $21,999 in unpaid wages with the state Department of Labor.

A seventh worker filed a claim against Cantisani through the Westchester Hispanic Coalition.

"What he says is, if not tomorrow then next week," said Israel Perez, who did cement work at Somers Middle School and other locations. Perez said that at one point he accumulated $10,000 worth of checks that could not be cashed, and that he is still owed almost $2,000. The workers have received partial payment since filing their claim.

Cantisani, with more than 40 years in the construction business, said he owes about $30,000 to $40,000 to 10 or 15 workers. But he said several contractors owe him money for work he performed and he is suing to collect money for a job at the Bronx Zoo.

"I'm working very hard to try to collect, to try to stay afloat," he said. "Because if I go out of business, then I can't collect any more money and nobody gets paid. So I'm trying to do whatever I can do to stay afloat.

"It may take some time, but everybody's going to get paid."

Such claims are a perennial problem in New York. The state collected more than $3.7 million in unpaid wages for 6,200 workers last year and created a Bureau of Immigrant Workers to focus on that population, Labor Department spokeswoman Jean Genovese said.

"Often we find that immigrants are among the most vulnerable workers when it comes to these violations," she said.

The Labor Department investigates wage claims regardless of immigration status. It is still looking into the Mount Kisco case.

Nineteen Latino workers sued a Yonkers developer last month under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, accusing him of failing to pay them for overtime hours or Sunday shifts over the course of several years. Their attorney, Jonathan Lovett, said eight more workers have come forward as plaintiffs. A number of local nonprofit agencies assist with claims.

Wage claims are generally in the jurisdiction of state courts, but minimum-wage and overtime violations may be brought to the federal courts, where cases tend to move more efficiently, said Lee Seham, a White Plains attorney who has represented undocumented workers in such cases. Another advantage of the federal law is that workers can recover double the amount of wages owed, plus attorney fees. And the law makes managers liable along with corporate employers.

Perez and others brought their paychecks to Rommy Urrutia, who works at a business office called Organizacion Hispana in Mount Kisco. Perez had checks bearing the name of Masonry Construction Inc. which is headed by Cantisani. The workers said that union members had been paid from a different account and were able to cash their checks.

The six men said they worked at sites including high school expansions, Hamilton Avenue School in Greenwich, Conn., Manhattanville College and the Croton Heights housing complex in Yonkers.

Julio Villeda filed a claim for $5,732.50 in wages, and said last week that he was still owed $2,970. Morelio Pereira said he had operated an excavator machine at Tuckahoe High School and was still owed $2,500.

In April, Perez said, he handed back his paychecks and received about half of the $4,000 still due. He signed a statement saying he would give up his Labor Department claim and receive the $1,951.50 balance by May 9, but the date has come and gone.

Urrutia said it wasn't fair that others in the company were probably being paid while the laborers were kept waiting.

"It's just these guys who he thinks he can kind of sweep under the carpet and no one's going to really do anything about it," she said. "He's had them like this ... for a long time, and I just don't think that that's fair. It shouldn't be allowed to go on anymore."