Filipino care home owner to pay over $200K in back wages to Pinoy staff

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – A Filipino owner of seven care home facilities was found to have been paying her workers less than what is required by law.

The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division says Adora Ancheta failed to pay minimum wage and overtime to 53 workers, as required.

All of these workers are Filipino.

Now, she would have to pay more than $203,000 in back wages and damages.

The affected facilities include: Tricia’s Care Home, Kelly’s Home, Cortez Home and Shoreview Home in San Mateo; Albright Home and Olympic Home in South San Francisco; and Flora’s Home in Burlingame.

“Unfortunately we’ve seen these cases increase because this industry is booming,” said Mario De Mira, workers rights advocate and coordinator at the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco. “We’re seeing a lot of cases come forward and unfortunately a lot of care homes that are owned by our kababayans. But at the same time we’re seeing that a lot of workers are coming forward because of the different community organizing in various parts of the Bay Area, but also because of the outreach and education that is happening within this industry.”

De Mira says one way workers can protect themselves from wage theft is to document their work hours on their own.

“Write down every day that you come into work, every day that you’re there,” he said. “It’s just to make sure that you have you’re own records and you can maintain those records. The employers will often try to challenge that by creating bogus records or basically not even having their own records, which they’re required to do by law.”

He also stressed that all workers in the US are protected by labor laws and enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal levels, regardless of their immigration status.

“Workers should also not be fearful about retaliation from their employers because of their immigration status,” De Mira said. “That’s actually against the law for an employer to retaliate, to make threats, to cut your hours, to threaten you that they’re going to report the worker to immigration. All of those acts are illegal.”

To learn more about your rights as a worker you can email the Filipino Community Center at info@filipinocc.org or call 415-333-6267