SAN JOSE — County officials announced a lawsuit Wednesday against a Milpitas-based home care business and three individuals who allegedly exploited several dozen immigrant care workers with wage theft and other labor law violations.
The individuals and home care business, which is called Safejourney Transport LLC and also operates under the name Happy Trip Home Care, are accused of paying less than minimum wage, failing to pay overtime and failing to provide meal and rest breaks, among other unlawful business practices, according to court filings.
“The message that we are sending with this lawsuit is clear and it is simple: we will hold accountable employers who seek to profit by violating the law and exploiting vulnerable immigrant workers,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said at a news conference. “We will be sure that they face their day in court.”
The case, which resulted from a year-long investigation, names three defendants — Armando Ogerio de Castro, Jr., Michelle Sison Delos Reyes and Edmund Vasquez Olaso, LoPresti said. The three defendants allegedly hired immigrant workers to provide live-in care to elderly people 24 hours per day and seven days per week, without meal and rest breaks, while paying “next to nothing” — in some cases, less than $5 per hour, far below the state minimum wage of $16.50 per hour.
“The job these immigrant workers perform is grueling,” LoPresti said. ” They have sole responsibility to care for individuals with serious life needs. They assist with bathing, with dressing, with toileting, with meals, with mobility. In essence, these workers are responsible for keeping these elderly folks alive and well.”
The three defendants and the business could not be reached for comment.
The county is seeking an immediate injunction to prevent any further unlawful activity, as well as restitution for the alleged wage theft and identity theft, said Valerie Brender, deputy county counsel.
Brender added that the defendants “conspire together and work in coordination with each other,” running some but not all of the alleged illegal activity through the business and some in their own names.
The defendants are also accused of failing to provide workers with wage statements, LoPresti added. They allegedly failed to pay wages in a timely manner and upon separation of employment, according to court documents.
In at least one case, the defendants allegedly took an employee to the bank, opened an account in her name, then confiscated her passport and bank cards to use the account without her consent, LoPresti said.
“The basic protections and equity that we have come to expect and assume (of) an American workplace are not present in these homes,” LoPresti said. “While these workers toil away for extreme subminimum wages, the defendants pocket hundreds of dollars a day in profit off of their labor.”
While the workers were paid between $100 and $250 per day — working out to between $4.17 and $10.42 an hour — the defendants were allegedly charging clients between $300 and $500 per day for services, according to court documents. The defendants are also not licensed under the Home Care Consumer Protection Act, the suit alleges, yet they publicly present themselves as providers of in-home care.
LoPresti added that the issue of immigrant worker vulnerability is compounded by the Trump administration’s “unprecedented anti immigration campaign that expressly and aggressively attempts to instill fear in our immigrant communities.”
“It’s heartbreaking to hear what these workers endured. Many of our in-home care workers are immigrants and may be unfamiliar with their rights, leaving them vulnerable to this kind of exploitation,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong said at the news conference. “No one should ever have to experience that kind of abuse, especially from someone they trusted as an employer. That’s why it’s so important for the county to take county to take a stand by enforcing the law and holding bad actors accountable.”
Duong also noted that the county offers a free legal advice line, at 866-870-7725, for workers and businesses to speak with an attorney and get help addressing workplace issues and labor standards compliance.
Tess Brillante, a former in-home care worker who is not associated with this wage-theft case, said in Tagalog through a translator that, during her own time in the industry, she had been paid less than minimum wage for fewer hours than she worked, and that she was not given any breaks or sick days. The job often requires care workers to carry out responsibilities beyond the scope of their work, from caring for patients’ partners and cleaning the house to attending to pets and cooking.
“Basically, it was no work, no pay,” she said. “The majority of caregivers experience all kinds of exploitation and hardship in their workplaces, but most of them choose to keep silent and endure these terrible conditions out of fear of losing jobs or a place to live. … Workers not only need the job for their livelihood, but also to send money back home to support their families.”
Ruth Silver Taube, supervising attorney of the Worker’s Rights Clinic at Santa Clara University School of Law, added that in-home care workers often are women in their 60s and 70s with their own medical issues who express “sadness, stress and loneliness” as they live in-home and experience isolation.
LoPresti added that the defendants may already be operating new businesses, and that authorities expect additional victims to come forward as litigation progresses.