Some of them marched on foot and others rode bicycles. But what stood out most at yesterday’s demonstration in Bushwick was that the workers who were demanding better working conditions had to take time off from their jobs to participate in the event.

The “Wake Up Bushwick” protest was held along the length of Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn yesterday, also the day of International Labor Day celebrations.

“I’m working but I took advantage of my lunch break to go, only if for a moment,” said a Mexican on condition his name would not be used, for fear of reprisals at work.

Carrying placards and chanting, “Yes we can! Yes we can!” hundreds of immigrants demanded yesterday that protection of workers’ rights be increased.

“They threw me out of my job because I asked them to pay me the seven weeks’ wages they owed me,” said Lucio Méndez, a 54-year-old Mexican who was part of the protest across from María Hernández Park. “Now I’m unemployed, and I’m here demanding my rights,” added Méndez, who worked in a restaurant carrying plates and cleaning up 15 hours a day, six days a week.

Like Méndez, workers – the majority of them women – marched accompanied by political and community leaders who support their demand to be paid what is mandated by law.

“We have evidence that the right to a minimum wage, which is $6.00 an hour, is being violated; most of these employees are getting only $3.00 an hour, are being made to work on the streets without regard for the temperature, and are not paid for overtime,” Nydia Velázquez, the District 12 Representative in Congress, pointed out.

Representative Velázquez sent a message to the employers: “We are watching you and we will bring the whole weight of the law to bear on you if you do not comply with the minimum wage laws. The workers are not alone,” she added.

In another action, it was announced that 4,000 signatures had been collected from area residents, promising not to shop in stores that violate workers’ rights.

This protest march is the beginning of the “Wake Up Bushwick” campaign, an initiative to improve working conditions in the area. And as the representatives of the advocacy group Make the Road by Walking” indicated, what is demanded is higher wages, paid vacations, the right to unionize, respect for the workers, and safe working conditions.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), made public a report on the “Avenue of Shame,” which reveals “the experiences and suffering from terrible working conditions of your neighbors who work here in the stores along the avenue. This is not right. And it’s time for a change,” said Stuart Appelbaum in English, while union organizer Manuel Guerrero simultaneously translated his remarks into Spanish. “Poverty wages cannot be tolerated. Lack of free time and lack of benefits cannot be tolerated. Lack of medical insurance cannot be tolerated. Abuse of working conditions cannot be excused,” Guerrero repeated after Appelbaum.

Among the stories of abused workers was that of Daysi Cortés, a Mexican woman who was hired by the 99 Cents City store, where she had to work from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week, and earned $260.

“Throughout the 10 months I worked there it was a nightmare. The boss wouldn’t give us time to eat, he yelled at us all the time, and he was always pushing us to work harder without a break,” said Cortés, the mother of three children.

Most of the owners or supervisors in the stores did not want to comment for the press. Mathew Clark, who said he is the son of the owner of the SS and Farms Market, had only a “no comment” about the march. The manager at a store called Pretty Girl, who would only identify herself as “Ada,” said the employees there did receive minimum wage and worked 40 hours a week, but she knew nothing about benefits.

The next step in the campaign’s follow-up efforts is a meeting with store owners to try to reach an agreement. “We don’t want a fight, just neutrality, for the owners to collaborate in solving this problem,” said Guerrero.

In case a settlement is not reached, a call for a boycott against the stores will be made, and the workers’ cases will be taken to the legal department of Make the Road by Walking, according to the RWDSU coordinator.