Providence Jornal: R.I. workers tell Labor Department representative about unpaid wages

CENTRAL FALLS –– Oswaldo Urizar worked for weeks, but never got paid. Neither did his son.

At a public meeting Saturday with U.S. Department of Labor representatives, Urizar said his employer promised him “six hundred dollars if you work for eight hours a day,” and “one-hundred dollars [more] if I worked Saturday. He offered my son $375.”

Two weeks later, “he gave me five hundred dollars. He didn’t give me the seven hundred he offered me,” Urizar said through an interpreter. By week three, the employer was still making empty promises. Then he stopped answering his phone. “Days went by, he never paid me, so I didn’t go back,” Urizar said.

Urizar said to the Labor Department representatives, “We want to ask you to stop this. We represent millions of families going through the same thing.”

The meeting at the St. George’s Church was sponsored by Fuerza Laboral [Power of Workers], an immigrant and workers’ organization whose campaigns include …

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