American Waste Services workers locked in ‘wage-theft’ conflict

By KAREN LEE ZINER

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE – For six years, Enrique Sarceno worked on a garbage truck, emptying 30-gallon barrels on a municipal route in Franklin, Mass. At day’s end, Sarceno would strip off his rank-smelling clothes and head for the shower.

He thought the money was good – $17 an hour. But when the former American Waste Services company, in Raynham, hired him, Sarceno knew nothing of the Massachusetts prevailing wage law under which he would have been paid at least $5 more per hour.

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