I have a bit of catching up to do with my blog, so this post is coming a tad late, but I am still excited to say the former of Nick’s Pizza in Rockville Centre reached a $375,000 settlement with eight former workers. Here’s my Long Island Advocate story:
Julio Contreras, of Freeport, arrived in the U.S. in 2001 as an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, 17 years old, without family and friends here, and hungry to work. Soon, he was employed as a dishwasher at Nick’s Pizza on Sunrise Highway in Rockville Centre, working 12-hour days, six days a week, for less than the state-required minimum wage, court and state filings show.
Now Contreras, 39, is one of eight former Nick’s Pizza workers who will share in a $375,000 settlement that the New York State Department of Labor reached recently with the eatery’s one-time owner, Nicholas J. Angelis, 62, of Rockville Centre.
The settlement represents a little more than half of the roughly $733,000 that Angelis had owed in back wages to the workers, interest payments and state penalties. Under terms of the agreement, the penalties and part of the interest payments have been waived, with all monies from the settlement going to the workers, according to a DOL release. It was unclear when Angelis relinquished ownership of Nick’s Pizza.
Contreras, who appeared at a news conference on Monday in front of Nick’s Pizza to announce the settlement, is owed $41,319.59 in back wages, according to a DOL order first issued to Angelis in August 2011 and obtained by The Long Island Advocate. In total, Angelis owed the workers a little more than $400,000 in wages and interest charges.
Smiling, Contreras said he plans to celebrate with a good meal surrounded by his friends and supporters when he receives his first payment. “I’m celebrating. I’m feeling great,” Contreras said in Spanish. “I thought that money was lost.”
The DOL announced the settlement on its website on Monday. “In New York State, we believe that every worker deserves fair pay for a fair day’s work,” DOL Commissioner Roberta Reardon said in the state’s release. “Wage theft remains a top priority to Governor Hochul, and we will do anything in our power to help victims. We will not rest until justice is served.”
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