After I lost my job in 2010, I passed in front of a discount store in the Bronx, New York City, and asked if they were hiring. They said no, but I kept coming back. Finally one of the managers told me that he’d “test me out” and take it from there.
A truck load of deliveries arrived that day - there were 34 pallets of bleach and other liquids that I had to unload. I did the work without any complaints and he hired me that day. At first, I didn’t ask him about payment. When I did, he told me it was going to be $2.75 per hour and that if I keep working with him he’ll give me a raise. Before that job, I was earning $2.40 an hour - I accepted the offer without thinking twice.
For the 4 years that I worked there, I had to work 11 hours a day, six days a week, unloading deliveries from trucks, dividing the merchandise and stocking the shelves. Sometimes it was more than that. It felt like being a slave. We were always being yelled at by our boss, who talked to us like we were animals for slaughter. For lunch we only got 15 to 20 minutes. If we were late, we would have to face staying home for three days without any pay. The job made us feel horrible.
In the beginning, I wasn’t aware about minimum wage. I had to pay rent, I was worrying about my family. I was just happy to have a job so I could provide for my wife and children. Even when I got a raise to $3.50 we still struggled to survive.
My rent was $969 per month. I earned around $350 a week. I was often weeks behind on payments - I always had to borrow money from friends and family. Sometimes, I had to go to court because I couldn’t pay my landlord. My bosses didn’t care. They would just not pay me for that day.
Earning so little in New York City was very difficult. Me and my family usually had no breakfast or lunch. We only used to eat rice and beans for dinner. It was hard to celebrate my birthday. I always made plans but they never came through. We also never could celebrate Christmas because I worked on the 24th and the 25th. We would just have regular food on holidays because of my low salary - nothing special.
Me and my wife used to argue a lot. We broke up a couple of times because of the situation we were going through. Sometimes you want get your girl flowers, or take her out. I couldn’t do that.
I decided to do something. One day, we had to move a big iron safe from one of the bad spots on the second floor because the floor was about to collapse. The safe was about to fall through the ceiling. The building we worked in was very broken down. The floors and ceilings were rusty and in bad condition.
My brother-in-law worked at the store too and he asked me if we should take pictures of the building, to show somebody. That wasn’t the only thing we wanted to talk to someone about. My brother-in-law worked on book-keeping and he figured out how much the store was making. Per week they were making $25,000. He came to me and said, what should we do? We talked about it and we decided to go some lawyers about the way we were being paid.
We went to the lawyers in July and we got fired in August. I didn’t find another job after that. My brother-in-law is the one who is working and helping us pay the rent. If someone offered me a job now for $3.50, I would accept it. I need to provide for my family. I have no other choice.
Me and my brother-in-law are not the only ones. 15 other coworkers have come out and said that they were also mistreated at the store. Some of them are from Africa or Haiti. They are scared they will be deported if they speak out. But I hope they come out. Its the only way to get justice.
