40 immigrant workers fired after lawsuit filed

Forty Brazilian employees of a roofing company lost their jobs Tuesday after eight former coworkers filed a lawsuit in Middlesex Superior Court alleging that Superior Roofing Industries Inc. of Shirley did not pay its immigrant staff more than $1 million in overtime pay and wages.

Filed Tuesday, the lawsuit accused the company of forcing Brazilians to punch out later than their American-born co-workers, requiring that they work Saturdays, and denying them time-and-a-half even though they worked more than 40 hours per week. The complaint also alleges the Americans were guaranteed certain benefits and the Brazilians were not. An article about the lawsuit appeared in the Globe yesterday.

Hours after the lawsuit was filed, however, company owner Sean Green called the Brazilian workers into a meeting, fired them, and threatened to have them deported, said Marcony Almeida, outreach coordinator at the Brazilian Immigration Center, a workers' advocacy center in Allston. Almeida said the workers asked for guidance.

"They are afraid," he said. "They said he named names and told the people he fired that he was going to refer them all to immigration authorities. They wanted to know if they should move."

A company representative said Green was not in his office and referred the call to his lawyer.

Boston attorney Michele Whitham, a partner at Foley Hoag LLP who is representing Green and the firm, declined to comment.

"We have just been retained as counsel for this company," said Whitham. "Right now, I cannot confirm anything. We can talk in the future, but this is all new to him and to us."

Employment and immigration lawyers said the case illustrates the problems immigrants face when they report workplace problems, even though it is illegal for employers to treat such workers differently from their American-born staff. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers are prohibited from taking action against employees for exercising their right to complain about behavior that violates the law. The 40-year-old law also bars employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.

But even with such laws in place immigrants are often the targets of retaliation and other abuses, especially if they are undocumented. In addition, those with the appropriate documents often fear that by speaking up they might jeopardize the lives of relatives or co-workers.

Said Boston lawyer Chris Lavery of Iandoli & Associates, "The idea that an employer can treat immigrants one way and citizens one way is not permissable. But people who are undocumented have all sorts of terrible things happen to them. You see this in the Chinese community, for example, when people are smuggled in and then, basically, held as indentured labor."

Lavery said US immigration laws require strict sanctions against employers who knowingly employ undocumented workers. Even so, recent studies show that thousands of employers in Massachusetts and other states are finding ways to skirt employment and immigration laws and save on labor costs by employing undocumented workers or by misclassifying US workers as independent contractors.

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.