Brooklyn car wash stiffed workers, attorney general’s suit says

Owners of a Brooklyn car wash have stiffed their largely immigrant workforce out of more than $540,000 in overtime pay and other legally mandated wages, a lawsuit filed Thursday by Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman alleges.

About 150 current and former workers of Tropical Breeze Car Wash in the East Flatbush neighborhood — all paid the minimum wage — are owed an average of $3,600 each by owner Benno Gmuer and his sons Gregory and Philip, according to Schneiderman’s suit, which also names Tropical Breeze’s legal corporation, U.S. Auto Wash Co.

Messages left with the men and at the car wash — which charges an average of between $10 and $20 — were not returned.

Schneiderman is seeking $1.6 million in restitution, damages and penalties, for conduct dating to 2012 — the furthest back the case can go under the statute of limitations.

“This particular employer used every possible means to cheat workers. Normal businesspeople might come up with three or four ways to rip off their workers,” Schneiderman said at a news conference at his Manhattan office. “These guys showed extraordinary creativity and aggressiveness and came up with eight or nine ways to cheat workers.”

Among those, according to Schneiderman’s filing:

n Management would bar workers from clocking in when their time cards neared 40 hours — after which time-and-a-half must be paid but wasn’t — and round down for partial hours worked.

n On slow days, a worker must still show up at the regular time but couldn’t clock in for several hours until business picks up.

n Owners underreported the number of workers to the state for purposes of workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, and denied paid sick time.

The office plans to pursue a separate case, on top of the $1.6 million being sought in Thursday’s suit, to recover money owed to the state. Work weeks could exceed 70 hours, Schneiderman’s office said, and workers weren’t paid for all the time.

Schneiderman said his office purposefully didn’t inquire about whether the immigrant employees were legally permitted to work in the United States, nor would the office seek to punish the car wash if it used such labor.

“We are here to make sure that all workers get fair pay for a day’s work,” said Schneiderman, whose investigators did an audit of the books and interviewed management and workers.

The case was brought to the attention of Schneiderman’s office by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is trying to organize local car washes, and the immigrant advocate group Make the Road NY.

Schneiderman said that the office had won back more than $2.5 million in “stolen wages” for about 1,000 car wash workers across the state since 2012.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.