LOS ANGELES — On the eve of Labor Day, the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Hadsell, Stormer, Keeny, Richardson & Renick, LLP today filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court against Terra Universal, Inc., charging the multi-million dollar federal government contractor with violations of federal wage and hour laws for requiring employees to work long hours without overtime pay and systematically discriminating against Latino workers based on their race and immigration status.

Terra Universal created a two-tier system, with one set of rules for noncitizens and another for citizens. For instance, it systematically deprived workers believed to be undocumented of equal pay — in some instances paying them half what they would pay a "documented" worker in the same job — and of holiday, vacation and sick days. Terra Universal demanded "undocumented" employees work overtime to make up for days it was closed.

Plaintiff Juan Miguel Real, a manager, was paid at most $17 per hour, while his predecessor, presumed to be a citizen, was paid $32. Terra Universal required Real to work as many as 14 hours a day and on weekends and holidays without overtime wages.

"Our employment laws provide everyone equal workplace rights regardless of what country you came from, how you got here and your immigration status," said Jennie Pasquarella, ACLU/SC staff attorney. "A fair day's pay for a fair day's work is a basic American rule, with no exceptions."

Terra Universal routinely required its largely immigrant workforce — documented and undocumented alike – to work overtime hours without overtime pay. To evade government scrutiny, it created a fraudulent time system, requiring workers to clock out at the end of an 8-hour workshift and clock back in as a “second job.” Workers who complained about workplace issues or who suffered injuries were fired, had their pay deducted or their hours reduced and were verbally abused.

"Terra Universal is just one example of the countless employers nationwide who prey on the vulnerabilities of immigrant workers, believing they will never get caught. Such unscrupulous exploitation hurts all American workers, said Randy Renick, partner at Hadsell, Stormer, Keeny, Richardson & Renick. "We caught Terra Universal red-handed, breaking nearly every wage and hour law in the book."

Terra Universal, based in Fullerton, California, produces "clean rooms" and other high tech laboratory equipment for NASA and the United States Navy, Army, and Air Force, as well as the private sector. Its annual sales range from $50-100M.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said, “This lawsuit represents the many abuses and tribulations immigrant workers experience on a daily basis at the hands of unscrupulous employers. Workers who are perceived to be unauthorized immigrants face even more stark exploitation. We are essentially turning a blind eye to these workers’ plight when our elected officials refuse to enforce labor laws designed to protect all workers. Instead of punishing the real culprits of abuse, what we see is families who must face hunger and homelessness when they speak up about the trials they face in the work place. Something has got to give."

Workers named in the suit include Andres Morales, Juan Miguel Real, Hugo Alcantar Fernandez, and Osfel Andrade.

Mr. Fernandez, who at one point earned the minimum wage of $7.50 per hour compared to $14 earned by U.S. citizens for doing substantially the same work and regularly worked 12 hour days without overtime pay, said: "It is cruel to take advantage of hard-working people, exploiting their need for your profit. Immigrants are people too that deserve equal rights and respect."

Top image: Hugo Alcantar, who has worked as a plastic welder at Terra Universal, Inc. for six years.

Bottom image: ACLU/SC Executive Director Ramona Ripston with (l-r) Carlos Barragan, a three-year employee and supervisor at Terra Universal; Marco Antonio Fraire, a representative from the Consulate of Mexico; Osfel Andrade, former Terra Universal employee; and ACLU/SC Legal Director Hector Villagra.

Terra Universal, Inc., is a multimillion dollar U.S. government contractor built on the backs of an immigrant workforce. It contracts with the U.S. Army, Navy and NASA, but for years, its owner, George Sadaghiani, has exploited and discriminated against its workers.
Terra Universal regularly makes employees at its plant in Fullerton, California, work as many as 14 hours a day, but refuses to pay overtime. The company pays workers whom its executives believe to be undocumented far less than everyone else, and denies them benefits. Mr. Sadaghiani verbally abuses workers and flaunts basic health and safety codes, all the while browbeating the employees into believing that if they don't have papers, they don't have basic workplace rights.
Today, the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Hadsell Stormer Keeny Richardson & Renick LLP filed suit against Terra Universal and Mr. Sadaghiani today, demanding repayment of all the wages and benefits he cheated from his workers ''' both citizens and noncitizens alike.
Mr. Sadaghiani is the kind of business owner the Obama Administration has said it would target for breaking the law to exploit its workforce. Yet, until now the most vulnerable workers, who are the victims of these unscrupulous practices, have paid the greatest price.
On June 29, 2010, immigration agents raided Terra Universal. Agents corralled the workers and handcuffed and arrested 43 of them. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been investigating the company for some time and was aware of egregious labor violations, it only informed the Department of Labor of its plans for a raid immediately beforehand. Now, although the Labor Department is investigating wage and hour violations, the victims of those practices face deportation.
Upon learning of the raid, the ACLU of Southern California investigated. What we found was staggering. Terra Universal avoided overtime by creating fake time clocks that forced workers to punch in to make-believe second jobs. Employees injured on the job were sent home without pay, or their pay would be docked. And most troubling was an elaborate two-tier system of workplace rights: a system for workers believed to be undocumented, and another system for everyone else. A red dot on a worker's human resources file meant that he or she could be denied equal pay, overtime wages, vacation, holiday and sick days - and any opportunities for a raise.
Worker exploitation is nothing new - but its brutal reality often goes untold. Such practices are magnified when you have a vulnerable immigrant workforce, unaware of their rights, and employers eager to exploit that fact. U.S. employment laws do not allow for a two-tiered system; instead, they provide the same protections for everyone regardless of their immigration status.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt heralded passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the 1938 federal law guaranteeing that American workers must be paid a minimum wage, and overtime when more than 40 hours are worked in a week, with these words: '''A fair day's pay for a fair day's work."
This has become one of the nation's most revered and time-honored principles. Unfortunately, while there are unscrupulous employers bent on violating the law in order to gain a competitive advantage, the federal government provides little deterrent, devoting diminishing resources to enforcement. And, so long as the federal government fails to aggressively enforce the law against ruthlessly exploitative employers and instead places their very victims in deportation proceedings when it discovers such practices, workers will be reluctant to report abuses, and employers will continue to erode basic employment protections for everyone.
This case is against one company, but it's directed at the many businesses out there who believe they can exploit a vulnerable immigrant workforce without consequence. Every employer must afford all of their workers the dignity they deserve regardless of where they come from and how they got here.
Jennie Pasquarella is a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

LOS ANGELES – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Southern California today sent a letter to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca demanding that he not employ against prisoners at the Los Angeles County jails a high-technology device employing heat rays, built for military use.

Sheriff's Department officials announced last week they intend to begin using an “Assault Intervention Device” -- developed by the Raytheon Co. that fires an invisible heat beam capable of causing unbearable pain on inmates -- at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility.

“I'm extremely disappointed in the willingness of Sheriff Lee Baca to employ this weapon-like device without consulting with the ACLU, which has court-appointment responsibility to monitor the Los Angeles County jails,” said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. “Historically, we have found Sheriff Baca to understand that not everybody in county jail has been convicted of a crime. We have had advance discussions with Sheriff Baca about several different procedures, but we have not been consulted about this inhumane device."

The ACLU's letter dismisses claims made by Baca last week that the “Assault Intervention Device” is uniquely suited to address some of the more difficult inmate violence issues and will allow Sheriff's Department officials to intervene in disturbances involving inmates without risking injury to jail staff or inmates. The ACLU letter highlights the fact that the military incarnation of the device was briefly fielded in Afghanistan in June and then withdrawn in July without ever being used. While the device was being tested by the Air Force, a miscalibration of the device's power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.

The ACLU's letter also cites a 2008 report by physicist and less-lethal weapons expert Dr. Juergen Altmann which says that the device has the ability to cause second and third degree burns over up to 50 percent of the body's surface and that without reliable protections against the re-triggering of the device against the same target subject, it has the potential to produce permanent injury or even death.

“There is no justification for subjecting any incarcerated population to a level of excessive force,” said Peter J. Eliasberg, Managing Attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. “The 'pain ray' was tested by the military, and the military decided not to deploy it – that's all we need to know. Moreover, given the long and troubled history of deputy violence at the Los Angeles County Jail, entrusting use of this device to deputies there is also a significant cause for concern.”

“The idea that a military weapon designed to cause intolerable pain should be used against county jail inmates is staggeringly wrongheaded,” said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “Unnecessarily inflicting severe pain and taking such unnecessary risks with people's lives is a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment and due process clause of the U.S. Constitution.”