image: Adhikaar, 2014
Immigrant Workers Faced Wage Theft, Exploitation
Shiva Baniya, an immigrant from Nepal, thought he had landed a great job working as an attendant at a Long Island gas station, especially because housing was offered as part of the package. But when he moved into the house, there were more than a dozen other workers living there already. Soon, he was working seven days a week and sleeping in shifts with other attendants in a bunk bed.
“We were being trapped,” said Mr. Baniya. “We didn’t know anything about the laws at that time. We were feeling kind of helpless.”
The owner of the station where Mr. Baniya was hired and more than 20 other gas stations throughout Long Island, Steven Keshtgar, regularly delayed paying or withheld pay from workers. The New York Daily News reported that “cashiers clocked 36-hour shifts [and Keshtgar] forbade them from taking lunch breaks and illegally docked their pay for the value of missing or broken merchandise from paychecks.”
“If one cup was missing, he take it from our check,” Mr. Baniya recalled. “If something’s broken, he take it from our check. If a gas nozzle was broken, he take it from our check.”
Finally, in 2015, Mr. Baniya, and eventually 22 other workers, sought help from the Queens-based Nepali community and advocacy organization, Adhikaar. (The organization, whose name means “Rights” had been incorporated with the support of CUNY Law’s Community and Economic Development Clinic founder Professor Carmen Huertas in 2007.) Adhikaar’s director of organizing and programs, Narbada Chhetri, knew that for the workers to receive fair labor conditions, the wages owed them, and justice they were going to have to take Mr. Keshtgar to court. Chhetri reached out to The Legal Aid Society for help.
Hollis Pfitsch, a CUNY Law alumna at Legal Aid, got the call. At the time, Ms. Pfitsch was also an adjunct professor at CUNY Law working with Professor Steve Loffredo co-supervising students in the Economic Justice Program (EJP), then an initiative which was part of the CED Clinic. Due to the number of plaintiffs, bringing in as much help as possible would be instrumental in righting some of the wrongs committed against the workers. Ms. Pfitsch made a connection with Professor Loffredo and their CUNY Law students. The team was joined by lawyers at Kaye Scholer (which has since been absorbed by Arnold and Porter) who worked pro bono to handle the in-court litigation on the bankruptcy claims.
The immediate problem for the workers was that they weren’t getting paid at all. Professor Loffredo says, “Mr. Keshtgar had a tangle of business entities and he had declared bankruptcy on behalf of them.”
Low-wage industries, especially in New York City, are rife with problems of wage theft, exploitation, and cruelly long hours that workers are forced to put in. Hoda Mitwally, CUNY Law ’16, who worked on the workers’ cases notes, “Often by the time workers figure out they have been victims of wage theft, business owners find ways around paying them. For example, by declaring bankruptcy as Mr. Keshtgar attempted to do.”
And many workers aren’t equipped to take action, whether due to a lack of resources to pay for representation or not knowing their rights. Indeed, Ms. Chhetri of Adhikaar said some workers were skeptical of asking for any legal help from outside of the Nepali community at first. And some workers had had bad experiences with unscrupulous lawyers before coming to her for help.
Through the relationships built by CUNY Law students, Legal Aid and Kay Scholer attorneys with the workers, encouragement from Ms. Chhetri, and persevering through nearly four years of adjudication, the 23 Nepali workers have finally begun to see a portion of the original $2.2 million settlement against Stephen Keshtgar declared by a judge in 2017. Bankruptcy court settlements led to $285,000 of initial payouts to the workers beginning this past August.
“Adhikaar, Legal Aid, CUNY Law students, and lawyers from Kaye Scholer worked together to fight for these workers’ human rights. The workers thanked us profusely. They didn’t think they would ever see their back wages. So, when it happened, they were so happy,” said Ms. Chhetri.
CUNY Law’s Clinical Program Adds Unique Value for Students and Tangible Results for Clients
Professor Loffredo notes the commitment of CUNY students working on these cases. “We (supervising lawyers Hollis Pfitsch and later Ricky Blum of Legal Aid) were very careful to ensure that the students had the tools they needed, that they were trained and capable and operating at a high level of professionalism. And we were there to answer questions and to consult. But once we got them going, this was their effort.”
Thomas Power, CUNY Law ‘16, was a second-year law student when he began work on the cases. He recalls:
All of our meetings involved sharing meals, which were typically prepared by Adhikaar members. With the help of an interpreter, we were fact gathering, articulating some of the complexities of the bankruptcy case, and the process of the court system. The meetings never felt long because we were building community and relationships through those conversations. If you don’t spend the time with your clients is just not going to happen. We were able to file Proofs of Claim in bankruptcy court, showing an actual record of what each of the workers was owed by Mr. Keshtgar.
The students “also facilitated the creation of respectful processes for group decision-making while navigating the professional and ethical issues presented by group representation in the context of community organizing,” according to Professor Loffredo.
Mr. Power also noted the value of the experience for professional development. “It was a great opportunity to meet with real clients and provide real, tangible help. These are very rare experiences for law students. Getting involved in a federal court case, with that level of client interaction and exposure, developing relationships centered around trust, it was a remarkable experience for me. And it has informed my practice after law school.”
CUNY Law: A Cornerstone of Social Justice Law
Grassroots organizing and movement lawyering are core to CUNY Law’s programs. Ms. Mitwally highlighted the importance of combining legal work alongside community organizing, “This win was a long time coming for these workers and it shed a spotlight on this egregious case of wage theft and worker exploitation. But instances like these are not isolated.”
She continued, “Organizing workers and pushing for legislation like The Sweat Bill which recently passed the New York State Legislature, makes it easier for people fighting wage theft. Getting this bill signed into law is a crucial step in ensuring workers will get money owed from a judgment. Unfortunately, the civil courts are skewed to get money out of poor clients versus the wealthy who are well-resourced and can find innovative ways to skirt the law.”
Ensuring that students collaborate with and work on behalf of people facing injustice is part of CUNY Law’s unique commitment to disrupting systems of oppression through lawyering.
CUNY Law students and alumni were involved at nearly every stage of Shiva Baniya’s and his fellow workers’ legal battle for their rights and wages. Professor Steve Loffredo acknowledges this is part of CUNY Law’s ethos. He said, “CUNY Law alumni are the backbone of social justice law in New York. You’re going to run into us everywhere you go.”
CUNY Law students who supported the Adhikaar workers’ cases include:
Class of 2015 – Amanda Bransford, John Guyette, Elizabeth Koo, and Tana Forrester
Class of 2016 – Jackelyn Mariano, Hoda Mitwally, Thomas Power, Alanna Sakovits, and Seth York