In addition, it offers industrial safety equipment, and industrial and home safety services. The company also provides home medical equipment and services, including respiratory care and oxygen delivery, mobility and rehabilitation, home accessibility, wound and sleep therapy, ostomy and incontinence, and home medical equipment patient education services and medical gases, medical gas pipelines and products, gas and piping certification/inspection, source equipment, and secondary equipment. It offers welding and cutting equipment for various processes, as well as related repair and rental services industrial equipment and tools, including welding power sources, cutting equipment, protective apparel, and industrial supplies for fabricators, farmers, small shop welders, repair technicians, or iron workers and welding gases, specialty gases, pure gases, fuels gases, laser mixes, industrial gas piping, and beverage and food packaging gases, as well as bulk delivery systems, cryogenic systems, and high pressure cylinders. distributes welding, safety, medical, and gas supplies for businesses and individuals. rally will be at Vermont Hand Wash, 1666 N. CLEAN stands for Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network. “The victory for the Pirian car wash workers is a victory for all car wash workers it could not send a clearer message to car wash owners that the days of exploiting workers with impunity are gone,” said Henry Huerta, director of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign. Labor activists plan to hold a rally today to hold up the Pirian brothers as an example to other car wash owners who may be abusing their workers. She added that abuse at car wash businesses is “not unusual, which is a sad statement on the industry.” “It is a priority for the City Attorney’s Office to focus on wage theft and the underground economy, and making sure people are paid for their work and … that lawfully operating businesses are not put at a disadvantage by employers who cheat their workers,” McDonough said. The Pirian brothers are also facing a class-action lawsuit in civil court, which McDonough said could potentially allow all of their workers – not just the 54 who filed the criminal complaint – to also receive compensation.Īs part of the plea deal, the car wash businesses’ payroll and health and safety reports must be kept open for inspection at any time, according to the City Attorney’s Office. “This is, by far, the biggest criminal case of its kind that we’re aware of having been brought in this country,” McDonough said, noting that previous prosecutions of wage theft usually result in only a few months of jail time and much smaller monetary awards to the victims. The amount that each will receive will be based on how long they worked for the brothers and how much they were underpaid, the prosecutor said. She said the 54 workers named in the criminal complaint will split the $1.25 million settlement. A few workers were paid only with tips, according to city prosecutors. The brothers own Celebrity Car Wash and Hollywood Car Wash – both in Hollywood – as well as Five Star Car Wash in Northridge and Vermont Hand Wash in Los Feliz.Īccording to the criminal complaint, their workers received a flat rate of $35 to $40 a day – far below the federal and state minimum wages – and no overtime. They were each sentenced to 365 days in jail and four years of probation, and ordered to pay restitution. … It was really a sweatshop,” said Deputy City Attorney Julia Figueira-McDonough, who helped prosecute the case.īenny and Nissan Pirian each pleaded no contest Friday to a half-dozen criminal counts, including conspiracy and grand theft, and several Labor Code violations, she said. “What occurred at the car washes doesn’t fit the technical definition of `indentured servitude,’ but people worked for years without receiving minimum wage or overtime they worked in hazardous conditions where they were regularly exposed to chemicals and not provided with safety equipment to prevent injury they weren’t provided with drinking water. Two brothers who own four Los Angeles car washes were each sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay $1.25 million in unpaid wages to 54 workers, in what the City Attorney’s Office on Monday called a “landmark” plea deal.
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