FRESNO – A group of Filipino caregivers staged a protest on Thursday, January 23, against their employer, Bedford Care Group of Fresno, who owes them around $1.6 million in back wages and overtime salary.
The workers’ cause is backed by a May 2013 California Labor Commission decision, which cited Bedford Care Group for labor law violations, including unpaid minimum wage and overtime, meal and rest break violations and failure to issue itemized wage statements.
In an appeal of the Commission’s decision, Bedford Care Group owner Stephanie Costa claimed that the workers were fairly paid.
As part of the appeal process, Costa and her lawyer appeared at a hearing Department of Fair Labor Standards & Enforcement office in Fresno on January 27 to present their counter-arguments.
“We have their time sheets showing they were paid,” Costa was quoted as saying in a Fresno Bee report.
However, the workers and their supporters refuted Costa’s claim, saying she needs to compensate them fairly.
“This is an injustice,” Nerissa Roque, a former employee of Bedford Care Group, told Fresno Bee.
She said that the workers are “very upset and sad” and that they want Costa to pay them what they are owed.
“We love the people we take care of,” Roque added. “But we also need to be paid fairly.”
At one time, Roque worked at one of the Bedford sites and provided ‘round-the-clock’ care for the patients.
An investigation by the Labor Commissioner’s office found that Bedford Care Group owed 11 workers as much as $1.3 million in unpaid overtime salary during the period of Nov. 2011 through April 2013. Workers also accuse Bedford Care Group of not paying minimum wage amounting to $17,025 and meal and rest period amounting to $95,053.
The company was also fined $114,500 in penalties.
According to labor advocates, the case is one of the more serious ones they have encountered in recent years.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – San Francisco lawyer Gina Szeto said that the Bedford case is not an isolated incident.
“Wage theft is rampant in the caregiver industry, and this is just one example,” Szeto told Fresno Bee.
(With reports from Fresno Bee)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend February 1-4, 2014 Sec A pg.1)
