Four Latino immigrant workers claim a San Francisco-based interior designer owes them at least $40,000 in unpaid wages and penalties. The workers say Mark Sommerfield, owner of Derapage Design, Inc., has made it a practice to hire immigrant workers for carpentry and ironwork on high-end upholstery furniture, and then not pay for all their work.

On July 29, the Worker’s Rights Unit of La Raza Centro Legal, a legal advocacy organization in San Francisco, community allies and workers marched to the Kansas Design Pavilion in San Francisco, which houses Sommerfield’s showroom office, to try to embarrass him into paying up.

According to the workers’ attorney, Rocio Avila of La Raza Centro Legal, Sommerfield has yet to respond.

It was the second time workers and allies protested in front of the pavilion. During the first protest, on July 22, Sommerfield locked his doors and left only after he was escorted by San Francisco police officers.

Sommerfield, says Avila, has made it part of his business practice to hire immigrant workers to do various kinds of work and then not pay what they are owed. Avila said that Sommerfield has ignored “numerous demand letters” to pay his workers. She said that he has been sued for other types of claims and seems to ignore them “as if he were above the law.”

(Please click link to read full story)