Labor disputes have been on the rise in Chinatown's informal construction work economy, as a flood of unlicensed employers and irregular business practices have led to numerous Chinese construction workers being cheated out of justly-earned wages.

One Fujianese construction worker named Jiang lost not only unpaid wages but also a considerable sum he loaned to his employer, who absconded without a trace. When he appealed to the Department of Labor, he was unable to press his case because he lacked information about his employer.

Jiang worked for several months in 2005 for a Chinese-Vietnamese construction crew boss named Zhou Zhang, who delayed indefinitely payment of $1,900 in wages to Jiang. In April of that year, he had also lent Zhou $7,500 to put down a bid for a construction contract, which until this day Zhou has not paid back.

Showing the back pay voucher and the loan certificate that Zhou gave him, Jiang said on the 26th that he has searched all over for Zhou during the past several year, but he has not even been able to track down his address. He attempted to appeal to the Department of Labor, but because he was unable to verify his employer's name and address and other personal information, the Department did not accept his case.

Liu Jinyuan, a construction worker in Chinatown, says that many Chinese construction companies operate without permits, posting ads in newspapers to attract clients and recruiting laborers at local job-information centers or well-frequented public places. Once the job is done, they scatter to the four winds. Employers and employees often lack mutual understanding, and often the personal information they provide is fake.

Jiang, who was cheated out of a total of $9,400 dollars, said that he used to wait for Zhou to pick him up in front of a restaurant on Mulberry Street, and he was never clear about the address of the construction site. After the project was done, Zhou changed his phone number, and Jiang was never able to get in touch with him again. Jiang even found out that the restaurant where they met, which Zhou said he owned, was actually run by Zhou's former wife, who refused to take responsibility for Zhou's debt.

Chen Qiyun, a construction worker who obtains jobs from a Chinatown job-information center, said that last year's bad economy led many Chinese and Hispanics to seek construction work by going to well-frequented public places, such as Prince Street or Northern Boulevard in Queens, to wait for employers to pick them up. Most are happy to get work at all, Chen said, and would not go so far as to demand an employment contract or insurance. Payment is always in cash.

Some shady employers promise to pay their workers after the job is finished, and then abscond with the money as soon as their clients pay them, leaving employees in the lurch. Some workers solicit payment directly from the clients, only to learn that they have already paid the employer in full and, needless to say, cannot provide wages.

Because most construction crews are thrown together at the spur of the moment, workers do not know each other well, so if their employers run off with their cash they are unable to contact each other and band together to demand compensation. One fellow worker, Jiang said, lost over $10,000 in wages to an employer who subsequently disappeared, forfeiting the fruits of several months of hard work.

One Chinatown landlord paid a construction crew only to have them run off before the work was finished. Furious, he posted flyers on East Broadway and Market Street publicizing the contractor's telephone number. However, with no other information except a nickname, his arsenal was limited, and he failed to cripple the swindling contractor's reputation as he had hoped.