"Five day laborers who sued contractors they said stiffed them out of hard-earned pay won judgments yesterday in Prince William County Small Claims Court.

Judge Wenda K. Travers ruled that their employers owed more than $5,000 in wages and court costs to the five workers, all immigrants from Mexico and all represented by the Woodbridge Workers Committee. The committee is a grass-roots organization that has served as the primary advocate for day laborers who wait for odd jobs at a 7-Eleven in Woodbridge.

The convenience store, near Route 1, has been a focus of the debate over day laborers in Prince William. Last fall, immigrants were rounded up at the 7-Eleven and charged with loitering. Residents are divided over whether the county should provide a place where workers can wait for jobs --an idea the county supervisors have nixed.

Yesterday's judgments were small, less than $1,200 apiece, but they were a major accomplishment, said Nancy Lyall, the committee's legal coordinator. Last fall, the committee brought in attorneys who successfully defended the men facing loitering cli^ifies and then worked out an agreemuc xs' with 7-Eleven that allows the men to stand on the property during certain hours.

The suits against contractorspushed the group into new territory.

'We'll see if workers want to continue doing this,' Lyall said. 'We'll also have to see if we receive the money.'

Defendants in the suits included a Virginia Beach telecommunications company and contractors.

The committee's court action follows other organizations around the country that are helping day laborers recover unpaid wages.

Casa de Maryland, a nonprofit group created in 1985, helps about 300 plaintiffs each year, said Jayesh Rathod, staff attorney. 'It's an epidemic, the nonpayment of wages,' Rathod said. 'People come to us every day.'

Lyall saidmany laborers do not come forward when cheated because of their immigration status and the belief that they cannot win in court. The length of the legal process and the $38 needed to file a small claim also are deterrents, she said.

All five men 'scraped up the money themselves,' she said, and the committee helped them with the paperwork.

None of the defendants appeared at yesterday's hearings. They have 10 days to appeal. One defendant, Miguel D. Perez, who hired worker Teodulo De-Leon Ortiz, 36, to put siding on a house, showed up too late for the hearing and filed an appeal yesterday. Perez's phone had been disconnected, and he could not be reached.

In another case, Leoncio Vite, 50, told the judge he laid pipe for Mega Telecommunications of Virginia Beach for $10 an hour. He said Mega set up at a Woodbridge hotel and paid him for seven days but then failed to pay him for 11 more days. 'They just disappeared from the hotel,' he told the judge through an interpreter.

Mega Telecommunications did not respond to several calls for comment yesterday to its Virginia Beach office.

Woodbridge contractor Mike Scruggs, another losing defendant, said he did not know that his case was going to court yesterday and did not know whether he would appeal. He said he hired Alfredo J. Torillo, 40, Ricardo Perez, 26, and Laurentino Leyva, 18, to help him lay driveways and foundations. He said he owed two employees $950 apiece and one $1,100.

Scruggs, 46, said he had a cashflow problem and was disappointed that the three men took legal action. 'I asked them to just hold on. When they went to the Woodbridge Workers, I told them to get the money from them,' Scruggs said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Torillo said repeated phone calls to Scruggs went unanswered. 'Scruggs made us understand we would not be able to collect because we didn't have green cards,' Torillo said. 'I think that's why he didn't show up [in court], but he was wrong.'

Rathod said immigration status is not an issue in small claims court. Once day laborers understand that and then receive a judgment, the hard part is collecting, Rathod said.

It's also difficult to track down contractors, who often are transient small-business people and few assets, he said.

Maryland and Virginia allow successful plaintiffs to seek liens on defendants' property and garnishment of their wages and bank accounts." (Nikita Stewart, The Washington Post, May 26, 2005)