Devrim Sol
Convicted drug trafficker, paid snitch, and domestic abuser Orlando Renato Raygoza-Huerta, owner of Los Agaves CSI LLC , has been found hiring workers without means to pay them and has been caught by workers issuing checks with no funds no less than 5 times in Kansas City, MO. The workers at Los Agaves are forced to endure a grueling 6 day work week, with shifts as long as 15 hours on some days and Raygoza has even resorted to illegally hiring underage workers. Some of the fraudulent checks amount to thousands of dollars.
Arrest of six suspects (Orlando Raygoza third from left) in which 15 lbs of Heroin and meth were found. No record of this arrest exists in his background report suggesting he took a plea deal. Source: WRAL News.
Raygoza, along with the general contractor and developer who hired his company, Big Sur Construction and Lux Living respectively, are being met with a growing public campaign showcasing their misdeeds. The Worker has been made aware of at least 3 groups of workers illegally mistreated by Raygoza at various times and all for the same reason: checks with insufficient funds. The Worker has also been informed by the workers’ advocates that the Big Sur Construction and Lux Living, who oversee the projects Los Agaves is on, have been made aware of the situation by the workers and their advocates, yet have done nothing to remedy the situation. Raygoza has received tens of thousands of dollars from Big Sur Construction, but nevertheless has written no less than 5 checks with insufficient funds. When one group of workers quit due to lack of payment Raygoza finds another group to scam and has done this at least three times cycling through different groups of workers to work his projects.
Check made out to Los Agaves CSI LLC by Big Sur Construction in the amount of $64,148.65
One of the bounced checks issued by Orlando to one of the workers in the amount of $5,200
According to a press release from Federal Prosecutors, the operators of Big Sur Construction and Lux Living along with the chief accountant have all been indicted and accused by the FBI of wire fraud and conspiring to defraud the city of Saint Louis Minority Business and Women Owned Business Enterprise program.
Image found by The Worker on social media warning potential employees about the Crossroads Wonderlands Apartment Project on 1923 Broadway Boulevard Kansas City, MO
Workers and their supporters have repeatedly demanded payment for their work, but their demands have fallen on deaf ears. According to one of the workers, “It has served nothing making a report or sending a letter without anything happening.” This is in reference to the workers sending a formal letter of intent to the Department of Labor in hopes of opening an investigation as well as sending a letter to Raygoza directly demanding payment under Missouri’s Paycheck Law. In the case of the former the Department of Labor refused to open an investigation to the matter. The worker added “It’s fucked up that they [Raygoza] are doing this.”
Copy of the rejection letter from the Department of Labor sent to The Worker
In response to the inaction by the government, activists have begun to take several actions against Los Agaves from directly calling and texting Raygoza, contacting Big Sur Construction as well as spreading the message on social media.
Social Media posts from worker advocates and the public sharing information about Orlando Raygoza and Big Sur/Lux Living
Raygoza has violated protection orders against him in 3 states: North Carolina, South Carolina and Missouri in connection to domestic violence.
At least one of Lux Living’s projects, the Katz on Main, is receiving tax abatement in the amount of 75% for the next 10 years in addition to $600,000 from the Midtown Public Infrastructure Advisory Committee Fund at the suggestion of City Councilwoman Katheryn Shields. This careless giveaway of public funds to subsidize the construction of luxury apartments in Kansas City comes at the expansion of the Kansas City streetcar into the University of Missouri Kansas City. These serve little more than gifts awarded to exploiters like Big Sur Construction and their minions like Raygoza who seek out immigrant workers to man their projects anticipating that they will not speak out and report abuses in fear of retaliation.
The reality is that workers anticipate nothing will be done when they do so, not surprising as according to labor statistics around one in five workers experiences some form of wage theft and worker mis-classification as “1099 independent contractors”. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics billions of dollars are stolen from workers each year by their employers outpacing all other forms of criminal theft, larceny, and burglaries combined.
Raygoza and his company Los Agaves may be doing these things to a few dozen workers, but Raygoza is just one small time exploiter participating in only a part of what the larger big time exploiters are doing to workers as a class.
Regulatory agencies and the bourgeois unions showcase their limits in combating these employers; while they might identify them, they have little teeth to hold them accountable due to their class character. The Worker encourages our readers who would like to assist in the Wage Theft campaign against Los Agaves and Big Sur Construction to contact the workers and their advocates by email at workersdefense@protonmail.com.
Image: The Wonderland apartments, a project by developer Lux Living, is under construction at 1923 Broadway Boulevard in Kansas City. Eric Adler, The Kansas City Star
