'the human misery involved in getting (your) car washed"

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-carwash23mar23,0,3592975.story



http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-carwash23mar23,0,3592975.story

A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Inspectors find dirt on books at Southern Calif. carwashes

Owners frequently violate labor and immigration laws with little risk of penalty, officials say. Many workers are loath to complain, but some have formally accused their bosses of underpaying them.
By Sonia Nazario and Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
12:45 PM PDT, March 21, 2008


**snip**

Paid workers at some of the other 1,000 washes throughout Southern California said they earned as little as $1.63 an hour. The minimum wage rose to $8 an hour in January.

"We sweat like animals," said detailer Manuel Varela, 42, who until recentlyworked at a carwash just west of downtown Los Angeles.

To survive, carwasheros often pool resources, cramming into cheap one-room apartments, sometimes sleeping side-by-side on the floor like, as one worker put it, salchichas embolsadas, or stuffed sausages.

"Employers feel out the lowest amount these workers will take," said Timothy Kolesnikow, a former attorney at California's labor division who now represents carwasheros and others in his private practice."People don't realize the human misery involved in getting their cars washed. There is a dark side to this."

Desperate for a toehold in the region's underground economy, many in the largely undocumented workforce are loath to complain for fear of being fired, physically threatened or deported.

Pedro Guzman, an undocumented Honduran immigrant, said a manager at a Hollywood carwash was able to keep employees washing at a furious pace -- 350 to 700 cars a day -- with two words: "Quiere casa?" "Want to go home?"

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Immigrants make the Golden State golden

The prosperous lifestyle is always built on a wage gap--in this case, between the immigrants who manicure lawns, clean homes, wash cars, mind children and bus tables, and their employers.

[truedelphi]

2. Abuses like this will continue until the move to make

Employers hire only those legally here is finally established

[blues90]

3. I don't get my car washed , but people just never question these

things , they take it for granted that all is on the up and up .


Where the hell are the people who are said to keep track and fine these labor abuses ? Or is this just another one of those none existent parts of our government ?

[JimiJonga]

4. Tell the whole story please

This story is absurd, they are talking about illegal immigrants. Cant they figure this out??? Are they banned from using these words now?? How wonderfully George Orwellian 1984ish of them.

Im not sure but I think they could sue if they got together on this,as bush is certainly not deporting them for anything. Nice to have a criminal bud in the white house, and most of congress for that 'cheap labor'.

Illegal immigation is a Republicans best wet dream, endless cheap slave labor, at cutthroat prices. How long until that bubble bursts?