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Chicago job agency shuts down following allegations of civil rights violations

October 12, 2018

An employment agency based in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood charged with civil rights violations arising from its treatment of immigrant Latino workers will shut down, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced.

The consent decree to shut down the company, Xing Ying, stems from Madigan’s November 2015 lawsuit against three underground employment agencies that acted as central suppliers of workers for Chinese buffet-style restaurants across Illinois, according to the Attorney General’s office. The two other employment agencies named in the suit previously settled with Madigan’s office.

Madigan’s 2015 lawsuit alleged a variety of abuses against immigrant workers. Allegations included that the employment agencies and their restaurant clients collectively set the wage rate as low as $3.50 an hour for each Latino worker referred, below Illinois’s minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, according to the Attorney General’s office. For every referral of a worker, the agencies charged commissions and fees of $120 to $220, along with fees for lodging and transportation, which the restaurants then typically deducted from a worker’s paycheck and then remitted to the agencies. Madigan’s complaint also alleged the employment agencies unlawfully marketed their ability to provide Latino workers in newspaper advertisements that made explicit references to workers’ race and national origin.

In addition, the Attorney General’s office reported that it reached consent decrees with restaurants that involved payment of back wages and penalties. Some workers received more than $12,000 in back wages.