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How companies rip off poor employees — and get away with it
Ruth Palacios and Arturo Xelo, a married couple from Mexico, work at their fruit stand in the Corona neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. They worked seven days a week for months disinfecting COVID-19 patient rooms at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, but weren't paid overtime Palacios says. The couple filed a federal lawsuit against the contractor that hired them, alleging their pay was cut without their knowledge from $15 an hour to $12.25. They're now selling fruit to make ends meet. (AP Photo/Marshall Ritzel)