How companies rip off poor employees — and get away with it By Alexia Fernandez Campbell - and Joe Yerardi - The Center for Public Integrity Fidel Martinez worked for a demolition contractor in the fall of 2020, demolishing several Walgreens stores and other structures. Martinez said the contractor owed him and his co-workers more than $20,000. His boss kept telling him the money was coming, but he would get his paychecks weeks late, and many of them he didn’t get at all. Already battered by long shifts and high infection rates, essential workers struggling through the pandemic face another hazard of hard times: employers who steal their wages.