One summer morning a rented yellow school bus rumbled up to the Johnston split-level home of Carol-Ann Bessette, then principal of a Pawtucket temp agency called Mobile Workforce. Out jumped nearly two dozen demonstrators — one of them wearing a rat head — organized by the Central Falls grassroots group Fuerza Laboral [Power of Workers].

They were angry that Bessette and her daughter, Nicole S. Underwood, had abruptly closed the agency two weeks before without paying their workers. Instead, they’d posting a hand-scrawled sign, “Closed by the IRS. Today only. Everyone will get paid.”

Outside Bessette’s house, the group chanted, “Pay your workers! Pay your workers!” They shook homemade rattles and hoisted signs.

Then, as a video camera caught the action, Bessette yelled back, “What about me? I’ve lost everything!” She said the IRS had frozen her assets, and “I’ve lost my house! I can’t pay you! I’ve got no money!” Neighbors came outside to watch. Protesters handed out fliers that said, ‘What would you do if your boss didn’t pay you for your work?’ ”

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