Diego Her­nan­dez, 31, remem­bers what his job as a car­washero was like before he and his cowork­ers union­ized in 2012. He earned rough­ly $300 a week for 80 to 90 hours of work at Sut­phin Car Wash in Queens, New York. He risked being fired if he asked for a day off. And if an anten­na broke or a car was acci­den­tal­ly dam­aged through a rou­tine clean, he could for­get about tak­ing home any tips that day.

In June 2015, car wash workers won a landmark battle to pass a local law regulating New York City’s some 200 car washes, one of the most comprehensive of its kind nationwide.

Car wash­es are among the most dan­ger­ous and exploita­tive places to work— employ­ees often deal with haz­ardous chem­i­cals and unguard­ed machin­ery — but orga­niz­ers such as Her­nan­dez have come a long way in their fight to clean them up. In New York City, car­washeros at about 10 shops have won union con­tracts with the Retail, Whole­sale, Depart­ment Store Union (RWD­SU) guar­an­tee­ing them high­er pay and ben­e­fits. Her­nan­dez says he now earns as much as $550 week­ly and receives over­time, vaca­tion and sick days.

In June 2015, car wash work­ers won a land­mark bat­tle to pass a local law reg­u­lat­ing New York City’s some 200 car wash­es, one of the most com­pre­hen­sive of its kind nationwide.

The Car Wash Account­abil­i­ty Act was set to take effect the fol­low­ing Decem­ber. Among oth­er pro­vi­sions, the new law requires car wash own­ers to obtain one-year licens­es, for which they must pro­vide proof of worker’s com­pen­sa­tion and unem­ploy­ment insur­ance. The city can deny licens­es to own­ers found guilty of wage theft or under­pay­ment, or those who pro­vide false data or infor­ma­tion. Car wash­es must also keep a log of dam­age to cars and prop­er­ly dis­pose of clean­ing chem­i­cals. Orga­niz­ers say that these mea­sures are a win-win-win for work­ers, con­sumers and the environment.

But now the law faces a final hur­dle: a last-ditch law­suit from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Car Wash Own­ers. Car wash own­ers sued the city in Octo­ber, claim­ing that it was cre­at­ing a ​“two-tier” sys­tem that impos­es greater restric­tions on non-union­ized shops, a vio­la­tion of due process and equal pro­tec­tion rights. The law­suit cen­ters on a pro­vi­sion requir­ing own­ers to buy a sure­ty bond to cov­er the costs of any fines or penal­ties it accrues. For non-union­ized shops, the bond cost would range from $150,000 to $300,000. Union­ized shops would pay only $30,000. Car-wash own­ers argue this pro­vi­sion gives ille­gal pref­er­ence to union­ized shops.

The suit has brought imple­men­ta­tion of the new law to a screech­ing halt. As part of nego­ti­a­tions, New York City May­or Bill de Blasio’s admin­is­tra­tion agreed to hold off while the city’s Depart­ment of Con­sumer Affairs (DCA) pro­duces new rules to gov­ern the indus­try. The con­tent of those rules will like­ly influ­ence car wash own­ers’ next moves. But it’s not clear how long this process will take: Nick Paoluc­ci, spokesper­son from the New York Law Depart­ment, told In These Times in Jan­u­ary that he could not con­firm the release date of these new regulations.

Orga­niz­ers are dis­heart­ened by this delay. WASH New York, a joint cam­paign of advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions Make the Road New York and New York Com­mu­ni­ties for Change, argues that imple­ment­ing the law is crit­i­cal to stop­ping wide­spread labor vio­la­tions. Car wash work­ers, most of whom are immi­grants, face unpre­dictable hours and are typ­i­cal­ly paid under the table in cash, accord­ing to a June 2015 report by the city’s pub­lic advo­cate, Leti­tia James. As such, work­ers are vul­ner­a­ble to wage theft and oth­er ille­gal behav­ior: Of 28 car wash­es exam­ined by the New York Depart­ment of Labor in 2008, more than three-fourths vio­lat­ed state min­i­mum wage and over­time laws.

A 2012 report by WASH New York claimed that New York City car wash­es rou­tine­ly refused to pro­vide gloves, gog­gles and oth­er pro­tec­tive equip­ment to employ­ees using harsh sham­poos and deter­gents. Most said they used exposed elec­tri­cal machines, and few report­ed receiv­ing any health insur­ance or com­pen­sa­tion to cov­er on-the-job injuries.

Pri­or to the pas­sage of the Car Wash Account­abil­i­ty Act, a num­ber of set­tle­ments have drawn atten­tion to such vio­la­tions and won small improve­ments. In 2010, for exam­ple, the New York Depart­ment of Labor set­tled with Broad­way Bridge Car Wash in Man­hat­tan for $1.9 mil­lion for unpaid wages, over­time and tips. The set­tle­ment fol­lowed a DOL inves­ti­ga­tion of the car wash, where work­ers washed cars for 12 hours dai­ly with­out over­time, earn­ing only $3.75 an hour, three dol­lars short of the min­i­mum wage at the time.

But as far as labor reg­u­la­tions go, car wash­es are still ​“the wild wild West,” says Deb­o­rah Axt, co-exec­u­tive direc­tor of Make the Road New York. ​“For many employ­ers, it’s just cheap­er to break the law and run the minor risk of being caught, than it is to com­ply with the law and pay the legal­ly man­dat­ed wages.”

Ernesto Salazar, who immi­grat­ed from El Sal­vador in 2001, says that many car­washeros don’t real­ize their rights are being vio­lat­ed. At age 41, Salazar is a 15-year vet­er­an of the indus­try and has worked for three dif­fer­ent loca­tions of WCA/​Rico Pobre Car Wash in the Bronx, earn­ing as lit­tle as $3.50 an hour. He says his super­vi­sors would tell him, ​“If you don’t like it, there’s the street.”

Salazar and his co-work­ers union­ized with RWD­SU in Octo­ber 2013, and now he works with WASH New York to help oth­er work­ers rec­og­nize their rights and organize.

Steve Rotle­vi, Asso­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, did not respond to inquiries for com­ment for this sto­ry. He told the New York Times in Octo­ber 2015 that the law amount­ed to ​“pure leg­isla­tive extor­tion and spe­cial inter­est pol­i­tics at its worst.”

Michael Car­do­zo, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing the Asso­ci­a­tion in its suit, also did not respond to inquiries for comment.

Salazar views the suit as mere­ly a stall tac­tic. ​“They are try­ing to con­tin­ue exploit­ing peo­ple that are hard­work­ing and hum­ble,” he says through an inter­preter. “[Work­ers] don’t know that after 10 and a half hours of work, they’re enti­tled to some time off. They don’t know that there are laws out there to pro­tect them. Right now, they’re in the shadows.”