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Company cheated Rikers Island cleaners of $1 million, AG says

Failed to pay fair wages, OT and crew chiefs demanded kickbacks during pandemic

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About 250 workers who cleaned parts of Rikers Island during the pandemic will share just over $1 million from a Nassau County cleaning service that failed to pay them adequately and whose crew chiefs pressured them for kickbacks to keep their jobs, the office of the state attorney general said. 

The investigation by AG Letitia James’ office found that CleanTech also denied the workers sick leave, overtime and supplemental benefits. 

According to a settlement agreement with the company, whose headquarters are in the North Hempstead hamlet of Carle Place, CleanTech failed to abide by prevailing wage stipulations but certified payroll reports that it had done so. The AG’s office “concluded that CleanTech engaged in persistent and repeated illegality in violation” of state labor laws, the settlement notes.  

“At the height of the pandemic, CleanTech refused to provide paid sick leave, denied its workers fair pay, and employed crew chiefs who stole workers’ hard-earned wages by forcing them to pay kickbacks just to keep their jobs and retaliated against workers who complained,” James said in a statement announcing the settlement with CTE Incorporated and CT Maintenance Corp., who do business as CleanTech. 

One CleanTech worker told investigators that her supervisors expected kickback payments of $120 from her weekly checks of $720. If she worked overtime, the expected payment was double that, nearly a quarter of her $1,000 paycheck. “If you don’t [kickback] the money, you don’t have work,” her crew chief would tell her. 

Another employee was told he needed to increase payments to his crew chief when he worked more than usual. “You’re getting more hours and more money, you need to return more to me,” the crew chief told the worker. 

The payoffs were requested and took place for 13 out of the 16 weeks of the cleaning contract, the AG’s office said. The company later paid out some of what was owed to the workers.

Mandatory trainings

The AG’s Labor Bureau began its investigation in 2022 after the office received a complaint for Catholic Migration Services, a not-for-profit legal service provider, about illegal kickbacks involving the company and the workers. Investigators eventually uncovered the litany of labor law violations as well as retaliation against workers who spoke out or complained in the form of firings. 

Catholic Migration Services’ deputy director, Alice Davis, called the settlement “a significant victory.”

“We commend the Attorney General’s office for standing up against wage theft and other workplace abuses, and also the complainants, who came forward with their claims despite overwhelming pressure and intimidation by their former employer. This case underscores the importance of speaking out against exploitation,” she said in a statement.

CleanTech representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the nonpayments and the settlement.

But the AG’s office said the two crew chiefs who demanded and received kickbacks were demoted and one is no longer working for the company. 

The settlement calls for mandatory trainings for the crew chiefs. The company has also agreed to institute several reforms, as well as to hold trainings in both English and Spanish conducted by the city comptroller’s Bureau of Law for workers. CleanTech must also provide reports to the AG’s office concerning its compliance with the settlement’s terms for three years. 

“CleanTech threatened, coerced, retaliated against, stole wages from, and denied paid sick leave for its Rikers COVID-19 cleaners, who risked their own health to disinfect where thousands were detained in close quarters,” City Comptroller Brad Lander in a statement. “Adhering to labor rules is non-negotiable.”

In November, an administrative judge with the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings found that hundreds of workers who deep cleaned and disinfected subway cars during the early months of the pandemic were entitled to prevailing wages, with two contractors who hired them potentially responsible for more $2 million in back pay and penalties. 

Administrative Law Judge Kevin F. Casey’s decision, the outcome of lawsuits by Lander’s office, pushed back on a countersuit by one of companies, jointly filed with the MTA, claiming that subway cars are not buildings, and that therefore the companies were not obliged to pay the cleaners prevailing wages. 

A pending OATH trial will determine how much the workers are owed collectively, as well as whether civil penalties should be assessed against the contractors, Valley Stream-based LN Pro Services and Fairfield, New Jersey-based Fleetwash.

richardk@thechiefleader.com

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