Activists, workers and the Westchester Latino Alliance protest and call for harsh punishment laws
Newsroom | Westchester Hispanic
Port Chester
Dozens of day laborers, community and social service organizations gathered in Port Chester to publicly call for an end to abuses against workers. There is a long list of contractors that do not pay workers and this problem must be put to rest, they declared.
One of the most recent contractors who have been denounced in court is Artemio Fuerte, from New Rochelle, who has already been accused of previous offenses of the same type, but despite the sanctions he received and ignored, he continued hiring without complying with payment of the wages of its workers.
The Fuerte Construction company, whose owner is Fuerte, has several violations of non-payment of its workers. At the moment, six workers claim a debt of $23,000 dollars.
Jesús Remigio received payment of his salary from Fuertes, but when he went to collect it he had no funds.
“I couldn’t pay for medicine and food for my family. That has cost me my bank balance to go negative and he owes me more than $3,000,” said Remigio, who attended the protest in Port Chester. “The last house we built in Rye was worth $2 million, and there’s no way they can’t pay the employees.”
Nancy Bar, who represents Rye and Port Chester, and is a vice president of the Westchester Legislature, said that this type of abuse cannot be accepted as a part of life for everyone in the community.
“We have local legislation to punish these abuses, but we ask that the State Legislature prepare a law that punishes contractors who abuse workers because this affects all of us. We should be upset and ask our elected officials for a law because this is immoral and illegal.”
Adolfo Cerrizo, a Nicaraguan, who arrived from his country in August 2022, has worked for Fuerte and continues to demand that they pay him what he owes him.
“I worked 15 days for him and I didn’t accept a check. So he paid me half in cash and said he would pay the balance days later, but to date he has not paid me. He called him on the phone, but now he has blocked me. This has hurt me, I have not been able to pay my expenses and send money to my family,” said the day laborer.
Organizers from Alianza Laboral Latino are defending these day laborers and a legal process has been initiated against Fuerte. They assure that they will not allow violations of labor laws and workers to continue to occur.
Posted on March 30, 2023
