Working Overtime, but Not Getting Paid for It

December 1, 2015 in Latest News

About three months ago, Alejandro Gut­i­er­rez Vega went to a construction site on the property of the Domain shopping center in search of a job. Gutierrez Vega, a Mexi­can immigrant, has lived and worked in Austin for 20 years. For a long time, he worked for various large companies, doing things like pouring cement and working with heavy machinery. But recently he wanted to change his line of work, because working those jobs was hard for someone reaching middle age. He had been instead doing remodeling and painting, but at the time he went to the Domain, he had lost his last job and needed to find something immediately. “I have to pay my bills,” he told the Chronicle, in Spanish.

Gutierrez Vega began working at the site, building the base of a building’s second floor. He said the work was very dangerous. He was given no safety precautions and no harness; “no one uses anything for safety,” he said. “They don’t tell you anything, except you need to bring your own helmet” (according to federal law, helmets are supposed to be provided by the employer).

After a few days on the job, the section Gutierrez Vega and the others had been working on was finished, and another group of workers was set to begin framing. Wanting to continue to work, Gutierrez Vega again went directly to the subcontractor, Marcos Don Juan Velazquez.

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