By Cherrie Anne E. Villahermosa
Variety News Staff

SIX security guards have sued their former employers for nonpayment of wages and overtime and breach of contract.
Mohammad Masum, Mohammad Nozir Ahmed Bhuiyan, Patit Paban Mondal, Kamruzz Jaman, Karshid Alam and Abu Yousuf, through attorney Stephen C. Woodruff, filed their complaints on Monday in federal court against Island Security Services Inc. and its owners, Joaquin V. DL Guerrero and Esther A. DL Guerrero.
The plaintiffs are resident and nonresident workers and were all employed as security guards at Island Security Services., from 1993 until their termination this year.
They are seeking payment of unpaid regular and overtime wages, liquidated damages, cost of suit and reasonable attorney’s fees for “all damages suffered by the plaintiffs resulting from the defendants’ violation of the law and the employment contracts.”
Masum, Bhuiyan and Mondal are nonresident workers while Jaman, Alam and Yousuf are resident workers.
Masum worked for the defendants from July 1993 through Jan. 2007. His employment contract was renewed in May 2006 and would have expired on May 18, 2007.
Bhuiyan worked from Nov. 1995 through Jan. 2007. His contract was renewed in July 2006 and is due to expire on July 20, 2007.
Mondal worked from Sept. 1994 through Jan. 2007. His contract was renewed in July 2006 and is due to expire on July 5, 2007.
Jaman worked from Aug. 2003 through Jan. 2007 while Alam worked from April 2006 through Jan, 2007.
Yousuf worked from Sept. 2005 through Jan. 2007.
The plaintiffs were all terminated on various dates in January by the defendants.
The plaintiffs’ claims for unpaid regular and overtime wages cover various pay periods from 1994 through 2007.
The plaintiffs “repeatedly and continuously demanded payment of their back wages beginning as early as when they first became due.”
The defendants “each time, repeatedly and continuously promised and represented to and induced each plaintiff to believe that their back wages would be paid in installments until they were fully paid.”
The defendants “made some intermittent payments in small amounts on various dates beginning in 2002, but they still failed to pay the plaintiffs’ back wages in full.”
The complaint added that the defendants “would always ask for patience and repeatedly promised them that their back wages would be paid in full. The plaintiffs relied on those promises.”
Sometime in 2006, the defendants prepared for and furnished to each plaintiff a summary of unpaid back wages. The defendants acknowledged their indebtedness to each plaintiff, the complaint stated.
The “defendants acknowledgment of their indebtedness to the plaintiffs and repeated promises to pay the plaintiffs were made in consideration of the plaintiffs’ continuing to perform services for the defendants and the plaintiffs’ forbearance from immediately commencing action in a judicial or administrative forum or by other means and were for the purpose of inducing such forbearance as actually occurred.”
According to the complaint, Masum, Bhuiyan and Mondal were required by the defendants to pay for their own physical examinations during the yearly renewal of their entry and work permits in 1996 and 1998 which is a violation of Non-Resident Workers Act. Those fees were not reimbursed by the defendants, the complaint stated.