Cleaners Locked-in at Bronx Supermarkets?

New York, NY —

Two supermarkets in the Bronx are coming under fire for allegedly locking in janitors who clean the stores overnight. A lawsuit has been initiated on behalf of three workers that used to clean the stores. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez took a look at the alleged practice -- and what activists are trying to do about it.

Until last fall, 20 year old Luis Alberto mopped, waxed and buffed the floors of several supermarkets around the city. He says he typically worked 6, sometimes 7 days week and cleaned a different supermarket each night. This young man with a boyish face is from Mexico. His lawyer sits nearby as he describes how a store manager would lock him in at night until someone would let him out the next morning.

SPEAKS IN SPANISH….Fueron muy pocas veces las personas que me dieron su numero de telefono para yo pudiera hablar pero casi siempre no me daban numero de telefono o llave para abrir y las lineas siempre estaban desconectadas…

LUIS ALBERTO: Only on very few occasions did one of them give me a phone number so that I could call them if I needed to. Almost always they wouldn't give me a phone number or a key to open the doors and the phone line were disconnected too

Luis Alberto, who preferred not to give his last name said even on routine nights, he couldn't open a door to get relief from the chemicals he said he used to clean the floors.

LUIS ALBERTO: It's like being in a prison because you can't leave -- you can't get outside if there's a problem, like a fire or anything else.

Some store owners say that they lock people inside for their own protection -- so nobody from the outside can harm them. But the real reason, many believe, is that owners don't want janitors to steal cash and merchandise. Critics of the practice suggest endangering workers is cheaper than other solutions, such as alarmed exit doors that push open from the inside.

Jose Martinez, is the manager at the C-Town located at 3220 Third Avenue, a store named in the lawsuit. He declined to speak on tape but denied Luis Alberto's accusations, and said that to his knowledge, no workers are left in the supermarket overnight. Rich Luis, a spokesman for the marketing firm that oversees the C-Town brand condemned the practice of locking in workers, and said the stores are independently owned and operated.

The C-Town at Jerome Avenue and 171st street in the Bronx is the other store named in the lawsuit. Robert Rodriguez is the owner's brother and helps run the supermarket. He says the store has one man who works overnight:

RODRIGUEZ: These are the keys to the back door and he also gets a phone… this is a cordless phone so he could use it at night if there’s any emergency. He also got the, uhh, cell number of the manager so if you come I will show you…

At the end of the store aisles, in the employees-only area, there's a wooden door at the rear of the store.

Rodriguez pushes through, to a riot gate. There's an open padlock hanging from it.

RODRIGUEZ: This is the street. It's not a problem for him to get out if there's ever an emergency

Downstairs in the basement, where boxes of food are stacked, Rodriguez says the janitor is also given a key to a padlock on the door that opens to the sidewalk. This is where the store takes in it's merchandise. Leading to the exit is a conveyor belt.

RODRIGUEZ: Does this move? No, no he walk up he can walk up there.

According to city building codes, it's illegal to require a key to open an emergency exit door. Doors with shutters, including riot gates, can be used as emergency exits, but only if they're left open while someone is inside.

But when they're closed, it's hard to tell if someone's inside. And that's part of the problem. Last summer the fire department inspected 36 stores -- including both C-towns named in the lawsuit. The inspections were done after hours and noone answered when fire officials banged on gates. Fire Department Spokesman, David Billig says its not feasible to go around cutting the locks on every supermarket.

Over the last year, community activists from the Brooklyn-based Fifth Avenue Committee have picketed in front of supermarkets and the Fire Department offices to draw attention to the issue. The group wants the Fire Department to target supermarkets who lock in their employees and wants the City Council to increase the fines for doing so from five-hundred dollars to five-thousand dollars. Artemio Guerra says the group helped initiate this week's lawsuit to force the issue.

GUERRA: These are terrible conditions and this is a tragedy waiting to happen.

The lawsuit seeks no less than 400-thousand dollars in punitive damages and an injunction to stop the practice of locking workers in. The attorney for the three janitors, Amy Carroll says real change won't happen until supermarket owners stop thinking of their janitors as disposable.

For WNYC: I'm Cindy Rodriguez