New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday the arrest of two supermarket executives accused of defrauding their employees of thousands of dollars, and of falsifying records submitted to the state.
The Attorney General's office is seeking to recover the wages that Bienvenido Núñez and Martín Durán failed to pay their employees. The two men are the president and vice president, respectively, of Bushwick Associated Supermarket, located at 220 Knickerbocker Avenue, in Brooklyn.
The suit, filed by the Attorney General's office, seeks to recover $600,000 in salaries for 30 of the establishment's employees.
According to the Attorney General's office, testimony in the case shows that baggers at the Bushwick Associated Supermarket were paid nothing at all, receiving only tips as compensation, which added up to some $30 a day.
The workers, who delivered and received merchandise, worked an average of 70 hours per week, but were paid nothing for the extra time. They got barely $300 for a six-day, 70-hour work week.
The suit also alleges that the cashiers and the stockers were not paid for extra hours, though they worked overtime every day they were employed by the Brooklyn supermarket.
“The dedicated workforce of the city is the lifeblood of its economy; the arrests today and this court case send a message to unscrupulous employers in the state that their conscientious employees will be treated justly and be completely compensated for their work,” said Cuomo.
The case against Núñez and Durán covers a period of two years, from 2004 through 2006, and alleges that both of them not only failed to provide adequate compensation to their employees, but also that they presented false documents to the state in an attempt to cover up their infractions. The suit indicates that the pair created separate payrolls for most of their employees, showing that none of them worked more than 40 hours per week, when the majority of them did work overtime hours.
Nieves Padilla, an activist with the Workplace Justice Project of Make the Road New York, said, “These arrests send a strong message to abusive employers throughout the state.”
