Jose Rolando Cuestas, a 34-year-old Honduran immigrant, worked for 10 years washing cars.

“From eight in the morning until seven at night, I was paid $35 a day,” he recalled, fingering a rosary around his neck. It was less than half the legal minimum wage. He was fired for complaining.

Today, Cuestas is training to organize other “carwasheros,” as they call themselves, to fight for better pay and benefits. “We must unite,” he said in his native Spanish, “or we will be mistreated.”

As the nation prepares to celebrate Labor Day with picnics and parades, a handful of activists, operating from a shabby storefront in South Los Angeles, are undertaking a bold – and somewhat improbable – campaign.

With the help of the United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO, the nation’s giant labor federation, they’re beginning to organize the region’s roughly 20,000 car wash workers to better their lot – and eventually even join a union.

So far, nearly 200 workers at 23 Southern California car washes have signed collective bargaining agreements with their bosses, and campaigns are underway at other outlets. A new state law is fueling the trend by exempting unionized car washes from posting hefty wage-theft bonds.

“This is a runaway industry,” said Victor Narro, a lawyer at UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education who has led several studies on car washes. “Many workers don’t earn minimum wage. Some work for tips only. They’re often denied rest breaks or shade to eat their lunch. Some are exposed to dangerous chemicals without protective equipment.”

A generation ago, organized labor was often hostile towards immigrants, viewing them as a threat to American workers. But in recent years, as membership has slid in manufacturing industries, unions have expanded their ranks among foreign-born service workers such as hotel maids and office janitors.

Still, the car wash challenge is particularly daunting. A third or more of the workforce is undocumented, according to studies, and many workers speak little English. Eighty percent of car washes are operated by a single owner, a fact that makes organizing difficult.

The industry has one of the highest levels of wage theft and workplace violations recorded by the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. In the past five years, inspectors have issued 1,423 citations for failing to pay workers compensation, minimum wage and overtime, refusing to provide itemized pay statements, denying rest and meal breaks and operating without a license.

Car washes in Los Angeles County, Orange County and other parts of the state were assessed $11.6 million in penalties and $4.2 million in back wages.

In the case of Cuestas’ Hollywood car wash, two owners pleaded no contest in 2010 to criminal counts of conspiracy, grand theft and labor code violations and were sentenced to a year in jail. They agreed to pay $1.25 million in back wages to 54 workers at four outlets.

In 2012, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced a $1 million settlement in a lawsuit against a company that owned car washes in Santa Monica, Venice, Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills, Folsom, Fair Oaks and San Ramon. According to investigators, more than 80 workers were denied minimum wage, overtime, rest and meal breaks. The owner created false records.

Ross Hutchings, executive director of Western Car Wash Association, an industry group, said car washes as a whole should not be unfairly tarred as part of the underground economy.

“We want those operating outside law to be busted,” he said. “If someone is not paying minimum wage and worker’s comp, it creates an unfair environment for legitimate businesses.”

Nonetheless, he acknowledged the existence of bad actors, adding, “Most of the car washes trying to cheat are in dense urban areas in L.A., O.C. and San Francisco.”

Water, breaks

The labor campaign’s eight paid staffers operate from a squat, gray stucco building off I-110. A sign over the door proclaims “CLEAN CARWASH WORKER CENTER.” A front window is fixed with iron bars. The décor: a frayed carpet, worn furniture and posters with such slogans as “We Want Justice Now!”

Car wash workers can join the center as “members” if they participate in protests, picketing or other organizing activities. Some of the 350 members are part of newly unionized outlets; others just want to learn how to improve their workplace.

Along with student interns from local universities, they visit car washes to chat with workers and distribute water bottles with the center’s phone number and the slogan “Agua, Sombra, Descansos” – Water, Shade, Rest Breaks. Thirty carwasheros have taken a six-month intensive course in organizing.

Members get free health care at a local clinic. The center also offers English instruction, help with filing labor violation complaints and a food bank for workers who get fired after confronting their employers. On a recent afternoon, Cuestas and four other carwasheros were taking a computer class taught by a United Steelworkers staffer.

Ezequiel Guerrero, a 35-year-old Mexican immigrant, said he earned $45 for a 10-hour day at a car wash on Florence Avenue in South Los Angeles.

“I couldn’t support my family,” said the father of two. When workers confronted the owner, “He told us he couldn’t make a profit if he paid minimum wage,” Guerrero said.

They filed complaints with the state and set up pickets. The car wash closed. “Thanks to the center, we know our rights,” said Guerrero, who, like Cuestas, is training to be an organizer.

One of those rights is protection against retaliation. California has strict laws penalizing employers who threaten to report undocumented workers to immigration authorities after they complain about working conditions.

Grass-roots movement

Unlike traditional union campaigns, the car wash effort began as a grass-roots movement more than a decade ago, when workers began showing up at the offices of Los Angeles immigrant groups and legal clinics, complaining of mistreatment.

“They were coming out of nowhere,” recalled Narro, who was then working at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). “The violations were rampant.”

A coalition of community activists, anti-poverty groups and religious organizations gradually came together and urged government officials to step up enforcement against rogue businesses.

They pushed for a state law requiring car washes to register, which took effect in 2003, making enforcement easier. When car washes failed to pay fines, the law was amended to require them to post a bond, ensuring that back wages would be paid in case of violations.

“Our end goal is not always to organize a union,” said Rosemarie Molina, the center’s strategy director who has organized carwasheros to speak at church services. “It is to improve conditions.”

Across the nation, similar centers have opened for day laborers, taxi drivers and domestics, as well as garment and restaurant workers. In 2006, the AFL-CIO announced it would begin formally affiliating with worker centers.

“The labor movement wants to fix problems in the working world,” said the AFL-CIO’s Justin McBride, who serves as the car wash campaign manager. “This is a partnership with community groups.”

But if the goal is to permanently clean up the industry, McBride added, a union with a grievance process means “a contract that is lasting, so you don’t have to fight every time there is a problem.”

Strategic victory

The campaign scored a strategic victory when the Legislature, in a measure that took effect in January, hiked the car wash bond from $15,000 to $150,000 with an exemption for unionized firms.

Adolfo Gomez, who runs Los Angeles Hand Car Wash on Central Avenue, is one of more than a dozen owners who voluntarily unionized after learning that they could avoid posting the bond by doing so.

“It was a business strategy,” he said. The bond would have cost him $1,200 a year and “I couldn’t afford it.”

The price of unionizing? Eighteen cents an hour over the state’s $9 minimum wage, he said, half of which goes to the steelworkers’ union dues.

To celebrate, organizers held a ceremony at his car wash and invited local TV stations. “Now my customers know they are coming to a place where employees get a fair wage,” Gomez said.

The center distributes door hangers across the city to let consumers know which car washes are “responsible” and which not. Last month, it organized a caravan of cars through Highland Park adorned with signs saying “Follow Me To A Union Car Wash.”

“There are still a lot of unscrupulous owners,” said McBride. “But they’re beginning to realize that ripping off their workers is risky, and forming a union isn’t the end of the world.”

Contact the writer: mroosevelt@ocregister.com or on Twitter @MargotRoosevelt