Justice for Georgia and Balbert Petition
Two Filipino caregivers, Georgia Danan and Balbert Quintas, are fighting for the most basic workers' right - to get paid for work they performed. Georgia and Balbert both worked as caregivers for Mt. Sinai, a home healthcare agency, in Los Angeles owned by Lovelyn Labadlabad Roldan. With the help of the Pilipino Workers' Center and the Association of Filipino Workers, they both brought their cases against Mt. Sinai to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE). DLSE ordered that Mt. Sinai owes Georgia and Balbert over $25,000 in wages and penalties combined. However, Lovelyn Labadlabad Rolden still refuses to pay them.
I support Georgia Danan and Balbert Quintas:
- I urge Ms. Lovelyn Labadlabad Rolden, owner of Mt. Sinai Home Care, to do the right thing and pay Georgia and Balbert what the DLSE has ordered.
- I urge that the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to step up their enforcement and ensure that workers like Georgia and Balbert are finally paid.
Two Filipino caregivers, Georgia Danan and Balbert Quintas, are fighting for the most basic workers' right - to get paid for work they performed. Georgia and Balbert both worked as caregivers for Mt. Sinai, a home healthcare agency, in Los Angeles owned by Lovelyn Labadlabad Roldan. With the help of the Pilipino Workers' Center and the Association of Filipino Workers, they both brought their cases against Mt. Sinai to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE). DLSE ordered that Mt. Sinai owes Georgia and Balbert over $25,000 in wages and penalties combined. However, Lovelyn Labadlabad Rolden still refuses to pay them.
I support Georgia Danan and Balbert Quintas:
- I urge Ms. Lovelyn Labadlabad Rolden, owner of Mt. Sinai Home Care, to do the right thing and pay Georgia and Balbert what the DLSE has ordered.
- I urge that the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to step up their enforcement and ensure that workers like Georgia and Balbert are finally paid.
We have made many good faith efforts to communicate with you to resolve this matter. We want to notify you that if you do not contact the Pilipino Workers Center within a week, by August 21, 2008, then the workers with the support of the community will be forced to take the next legal actions that could result in your owing triple the amount to the workers, for ignoring the DLSE order.
Thank you for taking this time to read this letter.
We urge you to live up to your responsibility as a employer and as a responsible member of society. You can contact Pilipino Workers Center at (213) 250-4353 to quickly resolve this issue.
Filipino workers deserve better treatment. We need to support Danan and Quintas so that others will be treated better as well!
Economic rights are human rights! We must all take part in efforts like these and the labor movement as a whole if we wish to combat this social injustice and restore the rights of workers. An accumulation of small scale efforts from the community will create profound changes on a national level.
This isn't Russia or China. Pay them!
My mother lived in an assisted living residence here in Los Angeles for the last 5 years of her life. Over that period of time, she had several personal caregivers assigned to her. Without exception, I found them to be generous and loving people who in face CARED about their charges and who worked very hard for very little money. Many of the caregivers, at least in the case of my mother, developed bonds that continued even when they no longer worked there, for one personal reason or another. To treat caregivers so shabbily says a lot about your attitudes, not only toward workers, but also toward the people that they care for, YOUR clients. Please do the right thing. Or be forever shamed. You know that you are in the wrong and must correct yourself. Sincerely, Kathleen O'Nan
Mt. Sinai pay your workers what you owe them. DLSE, enforce your ruling.
Pay Georgia and Balbert what they've worked for and earned! Stop abusing your fellow countrymen/women as low wage workers!
