SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Nearly two dozen workers who worked on a big development in downtown San Jose were forced to work without pay and were held in captivity until they were freed last August, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Labor Department announced last week that after its investigation into the labor violations, 22 workers were paid $250,000 by Foster City-based Full Power Properties, the Chinese developer of the 650-unit, high-rise Silvery Towers project in San Jose.
Full Power is said to have benefited from the work of the crew of Job Torres, who was arrested, according to the department's press release. The Labor Department said that Torres, who is unlicensed and was doing business as Nobilis Construction, controlled a warehouse where the workers were held in squalid conditions.
The developer also has stumbled into disputes with at least five different subcontractors that claimed Full Power had failed in separate instances to repay the construction companies for labor, materials, or equipment for the Silvery Towers development, according to this news organization's review of public documents.
Among the subcontractors that Full Power Properties is alleged to not have paid on time: Nobilis Construction, which also was at the center of the labor law violations.
All told, the value of the work and materials claimed by the subcontractors in the mechanics liens was an aggregate $1.8 million, Santa Clara County records show. Nobilis Construction filed the largest publicly disclosed claim, a lien that claimed $897,000 in unpaid work.
Typically, when a mechanic's liens is lodged against a property owner, such a filing is an indicator of a cash squeeze on a project, or that the developer has allowed completed payments to languish for a significant time.
Full Power in May obtained a $160 million loan from China Citic Bank International Limited to finance the construction of the two apartment towers. In 2015, when Full Power Properties bought the Silvery Towers site, the seller of the property, an affiliate of KT Urban, provided $18.4 million in financing to faciliate Full Power's purchase.
The mechanic's liens have now been released, including at least one after the receipt of the construction loan.
Last August, more than a dozen immigrant workers who were being held in captivity in a Hayward home were freed by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Federal prosecutors and Hayward police said then that someone named Job Torres Hernandez forced the workers there and at other construction projects around the Bay Area to work without pay. He was indicted on charges of harboring illegal immigrants for commercial advantage or private financial gain.
This news organization reported that Hernandez and his workers were doing work on the Silvery Towers project in San Jose at the time of his arrest.
"The U.S. Department of Labor will do everything in its power to stop employers who violate the law from gaining an unfair competitive advantage over those who play by the rules," said Wage and Hour Division District Director Susana Blanco, in San Francisco, in a statement about the San Jose case. "This case also represents a major victory in the fight against the scourge of human trafficking."
This news organization has contacted the Labor Department for additional comment. Full Power was contacted, but didn't respond to a request for a comment.
