File a claim and fight back! the more we expose this companies that are committing wage theft, the more companies are gonna think a little harder whether they are going to do that to [other] workers. – John P. Daly
John worked as a driver for a non-emergency transportation company here in Albuquerque, NM. Non-emergency transportation services include providing a way traveling for clients to and from medical facilities.
When he was first hired, he had to go through a training which he thought was going to be paid for by the company. To his surprise, at the end fate training period, he realized he wasn’t going to get paid for the time he invested in the training. Instead, he ended up paying for all training out of his pocket.
“…we had to, in fact, pay to be trained even to fill out things like paperwork that the company used internally,” John said.
He recounts long waiting periods in order to be assigned a route or a vehicle to provide the transportation services. Like most workers, he was eager to begin his new jobs so he tried to accommodate to the new work schedule as much as possible. “If I got called [at any time] then I would just go in,” he said.
He started noticing that he wouldn’t get paid if his “runs” or appointments were canceled. He also wouldn’t get compensated for his travel time to the job after being called in.
“ I started to realize this was;t an experience only I was having…[among other workers] we started sharing if they were experiencing this. They all said ‘yeah, the same thing is happening to me’.”
Due to the shortage of pay in his job, John started struggling being able to cover for his bare necessities, including his bills. “I wasn’t able to pay my light bill. I had to turn to 3 different agencies to help me keep my lights on during the winter.”
John came to El CENTRO to find out about what resources he had to fight back for the wages he had been stolen. Through our services here, he was referred to a lawyer a very low cost who is currently representing him in his case and helped prepared for the hearing.
Daly has a very clear message for anyone going through wage theft, “File a claim and fight back! the more we expose these companies that are committing wage theft, the more companies are gonna think a little harder whether they are going to do that to [other] workers.”
