I worked for more than seven years as a grocery packer at the Fine Fare supermarket in the Bronx. I worked from 7:30 in the morning until 9 at night with only a half hour break, six days a week. They never paid me anything; I worked for tips. After packing grocery bags, we delivered them to the customers' home. Sometimes I had to go up five or six floors without an elevator. Sometimes the clients gave us a tip and sometimes they didn't. There were five of us bagging groceries and Fine Fare never paid any of us. When working for just tips, you never know how much you will earn and it is difficult to know if you will be able to pay for rent, electricity, and telephone service. If I had been earning even just minimum wage, I would have been able to live much more peacefully and comfortably.

What Fine Fare did is illegal: it is called wage theft. Now I am a member of Trabajadores en Acción (Workers in Action), a part of Make the Road New York, and we are fighting for the passage of the Wage Theft Prevention Act, a New York State bill that would increase the penalties for wage theft so that employers will think twice before robbing the wages of its own workers. Wage theft is a serious problem – in New York City alone, employers have robbed close to billions of dollars every year from the wages of its workers. What happened to me also happens to many workers, but they don't say anything when there is a violation because they're afraid of losing their job. This law would also strengthen protections against retaliations.

One version of this legislation was approved by the State Senate and another version was approved by the State Assembly, but [because there were two versions of the bill] it needs to be reconciled and passed again, and receive the governor's signature. Sheldon Silver, John Sampson and David Paterson have the opportunity to do something that would benefit all workers in the state of New York. We need the three of them to do all that is necessary for this bill to be passed and signed this year. Our working families deserve this support.