ALBANY — Nearly 100 nurses protested outside the state Supreme Court Tuesday ahead of oral arguments in a lawsuit accusing the state Department of Labor of wrongfully closing investigations into victims’ complaints of wage theft.
In the state, nurses earn an average of just over $16 an hour. But immigrants working in this industry face not only low wages, but even greater challenges.
New York City immigrant nurses say the culture of wage theft must end. Workers are often forced to work 24-hour shifts at a time and are paid for only 13 hours, with little or no overtime. Plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the Labor Department say they want the money they are owed.
“This is a fundamental duty of the Ministry of Labor,” said Jun Chang, organizer of the “Ain’t IA Woman” campaign.
The campaign is one of several organizations, including the Chinese Staff & Workers Association, the Disability Education & Advocacy Network of Western New York, the National Organization for Women New York State and others, calling on the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate the case.
Because most immigrant nurses do not speak English, they are at greater risk of wage theft – and thus forced to live in poverty.
Chang said the Labor Department is failing in its duty to protect immigrant nurses from wage theft.
“It is absolutely within their power to prosecute the illegal actions of the Chinese American Planning Council and protect our workers,” he said.
Dozens of nurses marched outside the courthouse on Tuesday, chanting “Stop the 24!” and “DOL, shame on you!”
Attorneys from the Legal Aid Society and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, as well as counsel from the DOL and CPC, presented oral arguments before Acting Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly on Tuesday.
The Legal Aid Society and NCLEJ filed a class action lawsuit last year after the Department of Labor closed hundreds of complaints from nurses about unpaid wages, and are fighting to have the more than 200 cases reopened.
“The agencies do not want this case to proceed because they have been able to avoid paying these workers for years,” said NCLEJ lead attorney Carmela Huang.
DOL lawyers argued that the department had entered into arbitration agreements with the employers and had the legal authority to conduct separate investigations.
The lawyers also argue that the agency does not have the time or manpower to separately pursue the claims of each individual worker who is not being paid.
“The decision to dismiss these lawsuits does not affect the rights, procedures or practices available to the public,” a lawyer for the state Attorney General’s Office said in defense of the Labor Department’s decision.
Zhu Qin Chen, a nurse who has been working around the clock for 15 years, said through a translator that it was putting a strain on her body and no longer allowing her to care for patients.
“We want to end the 24-hour workday,” she said with the help of a translator. “We don’t want the second generation to have a 24-hour workday. That’s not good for the nurses and it’s not good for the patients.”
Attorney General Letitia James’ office did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday. Counsel for the attorney general’s office declined to comment outside the hearing room.
It is unclear when the judge will issue a decision, but the nurses’ lawyers said they were encouraged by the judge’s questions and his warm welcome to the nurses in the courtroom.
“I think he was extremely respectful of the workers here, which is something I can’t say about the Department of Labor,” said Richard Blum, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s labor law division.
The state Labor Department does not comment on pending litigation.
