NYC Laundry Workers’ Fight Continues In the Courts
Liox Cleaners’ owners have declared bankruptcy amidst a wage theft lawsuit filed by ex-employees.
By Moses Bustos and Dimitri Fautsch
Liox Cleaners cut the price of their laundry delivery service from $1.50/lb to $.60/lb. in May 2020, during the height of the pandemic in New York City. The business received new customers thanks to the press coverage of the $250,000 in total discounts. For years, the employees who shouldered the extra loads of laundry were underpaid and denied overtime, according to a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
Tensions simmered throughout the summer in an unventilated basement on the Upper West Side where Liox’ drivers dropped off dirty clothes to be washed and folded. Outside the basement laundry factory in November 2020, workers held a rally to declare their dissatisfaction with the working conditions. The following January, the workers won a union election. A few weeks later Liox management closed the laundry shop on the Upper West Side and fired the workers.
The workers’ campaign for fair treatment, and their employers’ response, illustrates the challenges facing essential workers more than a year after the public anointed them heroes for doing their jobs in the face of real danger. Their employer decided to fight instead of cooperate despite the laundry industries’ improved fortunes. Both the courts and legislation offer hope but no concrete support so far.
“We can no longer bear the exploitation”, said Cecilia Dávila, an ex-employee of Wash Supply, a laundromat owned by Liox. “It is time that we raise our voices”, she added.
Liox Workers Speak Up
Everyone does laundry, but not everyone doing the laundry gets a living wage. Sandra Mejia, 40, is an ex-employee of Wash Supply located on the Upper West Side. She immigrated from Mexico City and lives in the Bronx.
She says she was paid $9 per hour when she first started working at Liox around December 2018, well below the city’s minimum wage of $12/hour. Mejia remembers one occasion where an employee brought the question of minimum-wage up with the management. “You want to get more work out of me and you don’t want to pay me the minimum?”, she recalls. “And they fired her, for us to shut up” she said.
Meija says employees had to buy their own personal protective equipment and basic supplies. “They didn’t give us gloves, masks. […] We had to buy our own toilet paper.” Over the phone, Mejia is calm and speaks softly. She identifies as catholic and doesn’t use the internet. Her voice is amicable and stays optimistic even as she shares her disappointments with laundry work. “There was no rest”, she said. “A little difficult to work in that place.”
Liox Cleaners did not respond to El Deadline regarding the workers’ allegations, ongoing legal processes and other details included in this story.
Laundromats in New York City
However, the workplace conditions of laundromats vary depending on the storefront. Vicky, who preferred to give only her first name, is an Asian-American employee at One Day Laundromat in Harlem. She says her “job is not so bad” and is bright and smiling as she declines any need for a union while she folds children’s clothing. According to Vicky, the worst part of her job is the constant music played outside on the sidewalk.
More people are dropping off their laundry for wash-and-fold services because of the pandemic. For Elvia, 48, a Mexican immigrant and employee in-charge at Tags Laundromat at 1793 Amsterdam Avenue, the pandemic made her job more challenging. She says the rise in drop-off business means there is “more work than before”, but still the “pay is not enough.” Elvia is emptying a laundry cart into a machine as she says clients appear “crazier than before” the pandemic, but she must continue to accumulate hours to get by. When informed about the unionization effort at Wash Supply, she says she would like a union at her own workplace.
Laundromats are a fragmented industry. There are currently 3,790 active retail laundry licenses and 67 businesses with more than a single license, according to data provided by the Department of Consumer Affairs. Only 152 licenses in total are held by a business with more than one license. In the case of raising labor standards at laundromats, sectoral bargaining, one form of collective bargaining, is appropriate for an industry with many small actors.
Chris J, the manager at Laundry Pro on 938 E 163rd street is using a drill to repair washing machines as he recounts his team’s efforts to stay safe during the pandemic, which includes routine cleaning of every inch of the establishment. He is open and proud as he describes a workplace culture that emphasizes strict disinfecting guidelines and a unified spirit that shows in the shiny and organized appearance of the large laundromat. “Laundry was always a dirty business, so they always work hard to keep the place clean”, he said.
The Workers’ Lawsuit
Sandra Meija and five former employees of Liox filed a lawsuit against the company for wage theft in December 2020. In addition to never having received overtime or at least the minimum wage, the plaintiffs say they never worked the same weekly schedule despite years of employment.
The six plaintiffs, their lawyer, and two bankruptcy lawyers representing the three owners of Liox — Sergey and Victoria Patrikeev and Kostiantyn Didorenko — dialed into a conference call to attend a virtual court hearing on May 12. The corporate defendants, Liox Cleaners and Wash Supply Laundromat, retained no counsel. The judge declared the two corporations in default and awarded $819,535 in damages to the plaintiffs. However, the money, like the corporations who owe it, exist only on paper.
“When I arrived [to America] I was very happy. I will realize all my dreams, but when one realizes the reality… it is not as I expected. There are places that give you opportunities, but others only truncate you”, said Davila, who is originally from Guerrero, Mexico but now lives in the Bronx. where she hopes to one day start her own business.
Lina Stillman, the plaintiffs attorney, is hopeful that she can collect on the debts of the corporations and plans to retain a bankruptcy lawyer so she can pursue the debts owed by the individuals. In March, the three owners of Liox each filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and listed a total of $21,200 in assets. According to Stillman, Liox is still in business as their delivery vans can be seen driving around the city. “These workers are some of the most courageous workers I have ever met and they should be extremely proud of themselves,” said Stillman.
Anti Union Efforts at Liox
Liox Cleaners worked with Cesar Alarcon, the president of Stay Union Free Corp to dissuade workers from unionizing. Alarcon visited the site and spoke to employees after cases were filed with the NLRB in January and March. “I volunteered my services for a quick speech that was all about labor law,” said Alarcon during an interview. He says he received no financial gain for his services, and his firm did not file a LM-20 form with the Department of Labor, required when consultants are paid for talking directly to employees about collective bargaining. Alarcon used to be an officer at the United Workers of America Local 322 as early as 2006.
Employers frequently use consultants to break up unions. 70 percent of employers engage consultants who specialize in defeating union organizing campaigns, according to John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University. “Consultants are sort of experts at trying to get across the same messages without saying it in a way that violates the law,” added Logan.
New York state’s Excluded Workers Fund provides a one-time payment to people who were ineligible for prior pandemic relief funds because of their immigration status. The fund splits $2.1 billion into two tiers of payments, $15,600 and $3,200, depending on documentation that can prove a loss of income. The state has not yet set a date for distributing the money.
When asked about the court case, Mejia replied “We have the case in court, what is the use of a paper that has declared that I won? But if (Liox) are bankrupt, where are we left as workers? We are not demanding something out of the ordinary, only what they owe us.”
