Nine workers who spent months after the Sept. 11 attacks cleaning offices, apartments and stores near ground zero filed a lawsuit yesterday against several of their former employers, accusing them of wage violations, including not paying overtime. The suit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, says the workers often put in 70 or more hours a week, but did not receive time-and-a-half pay for overtime, while the companies profited greatly. ?We risked our health and worked very hard to help restore Lower Manhattan after 9/11,? said one of the workers, Lucelly Gil of Queens. ?These companies took advantage of this tragedy to enrich themselves at our expense. We are demanding justice.?
See "Cleaners File Suit Over Pay for Jobs Near Ground Zero", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, September 12, 2007