Jail Time for LA Car Wash Owners

Two brothers who own four LA car washes were sentenced to a year in jail last week and ordered to pay workers $1.25 million.

The verdict came after a plea agreement that settled 172 charges of criminal and labor-law violations, and shows the increasing heft of a long-running Steelworkers campaign to organize car-wash workers in the city.

City attorneys, who brought the charges, called it the biggest wage-theft prosecution in the nation.

The owners, Benny and Nissan Pirian, were accused of paying workers below minimum wage, forcing some workers to accept only tips for pay, refusing to pay overtime, demanding unpaid labor before and after work, and denying water and rest breaks, even in LA’s blistering heat. Workers said they earned a flat rate of $35-$40 a day. Some reported physical threats when they tried to organize and report abuses.

The fine will be split among 54 workers. The owners still face a class-action lawsuit that could recover more stolen wages for other workers who didn’t join the criminal complaint.

“There will be no more exploitation with impunity in the industry,” said Chloe Osmer of the Clean Car Wash Campaign, a 2.5-year-old effort backed by the Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO.

As the verdict was announced, campaigners were busy distributing bottles of water to LA car-wash workers, complete with legal standards for pay and breaks (and a pitch to join up) printed on the side. The group estimates there are between 7,000 and 10,000 mostly Latino “carwasheros” in LA.

“The problems in car washes are very similar across the city,” Osmer said. “They’re getting paid less than minimum wage, often a daily rate, and health and safety violations are rampant.”

THE LONG HAUL

The strategy to challenge car-wash employers morphed from a legal approach to recover stolen wages to a wider push to raise standards, because “workers could file wage and hour claims until they were blue in the face and it wasn’t going to permanently change conditions in the industry,” Osmer said.

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Osmer said the group is pursuing a two-prong approach that blends the leadership development and heavy community involvement of a worker center with the institutional weight of a union that demands employers sign on the dotted line.

Car-wash workers engaged in the organizing aren’t paying dues at this point, but they’re getting membership cards to give them a sense of commitment and ownership.

“There’s recognition in this campaign that you don’t all of a sudden become union from day to night,” she said. “You’ve got to really ingrain it in people so they’re ready to take leadership when it happens.”

She added that the Steelworkers became involved after a coalition of legal aid clinics serving low-wage workers noticed car washes across the board were particularly abusive. The Steelworkers stepped up when the advocates solicited the involvement of unions for a long-term effort.

The campaign trains and supports workers fired for their organizing activity. They've helped establish workplace committees at individual washes, which meet monthly in a larger council to coordinate activities and eventually to bargain with the car wash owners’ association.

“We’re not going to be talking about pensions the first year,” Osmer said. But once the industry shifts, she said, “The long term is a collective bargaining agreement, and a city-wide local for car-wash workers.”

That shift, she added, is already happening—in no small part because of the publicity around developments like last week’s jail time for the Pirian brothers.

“The workers know about it, the owners know about it,” she said. “They’re conscious that they’re not going to be able to get away with things they have been up to now.”