ACLU Defends Immigrant Workers’ Right to Protest Exploitation

Bay Area Employer Files SLAPP Suit to Muzzle Free Speech of Day Laborers and La Raza Centro Legal
For Immediate Release: April 28, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO - The ACLU of Northern California is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit filed against two day laborers, a San Francisco based non-profit group, and members of its legal staff. The motion to strike was filed under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which protects speakers exercising their free speech rights from retaliatory lawsuits, in Alameda Superior Court today.

The day laborers, Israel Mendez and Miguel Perez, and their advocates were protesting the actions of Marvin Maltez, who has refused to pay his former employees their full wages for four months of work installing carpets in Bay Area homes and hotels. According to La Raza Centro Legal’s Day Labor Program, the laborers are owed more than $20,000.

La Raza Centro Legal’s Day Labor Program filed a complaint with the Labor Commission on behalf of the day laborers and launched a public effort to publicize the exploitation of undocumented workers. Maltez, although admitting that he owes the workers money, has responded by suing La Raza and the workers on the basis of a variety of claims, including emotional distress and violation of privacy.

“This retaliatory lawsuit by Mr. Maltez is a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the defendants’ freedom to protest and their ability to draw attention to the important issue of exploitation of immigrant workers,” said ACLU cooperating attorney Mark White of Chapman, Popik & White.

“Every day throughout the Bay Area, undocumented workers are exploited by unethical employers who hire them but refuse to pay them once the job is done,” said Hillary Ronen, an attorney for La Raza Centro Legal, who is named as a defendant in the case. “This case exemplifies the plight of day laborers. The employer filed the suit to silence our efforts to advocate on behalf of our clients who have not been paid in full for their work.”

“The community-based action that La Raza carried out, including peaceful picketing, leafleting, letter-writing and talking to the press, are constitutional rights of freedom of speech and are protected under the anti-SLAPP statute,” added White, who is joined by Carol Quackenbos and Benjamin Riley of Chapman, Popik & White and ACLU attorney Margaret Crosby in defending the workers and their advocates.

In 1992, the Legislature enacted the anti-SLAPP statute when they found a disturbing increase in lawsuits brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of First Amendment rights.