A second rally to protest the Princeton 7-Eleven store’s alleged failure to treat employees fairly in terms of wages will be held Thursday, April 10 at 6:30 p.m. in front of the store on East Nassau Street. Turnout at the first rally, which was held the morning of March 24, was lower than expected because of the early hour.

“We want the workers to be able to come, so we hope to have it in the evening,” said Maria Juega of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF), last week. The LALDEF, which sponsored the first rally, hopes to increase awareness in the community about the problem of wage theft, which they say affects workers in the landscaping, food service, and convenience store industries.

Attorney Roger Martindell has filed a lawsuit in Mercer County Superior Court on behalf of three former employees of the Princeton store. The suit against the owners and managers of the Princeton 7-Eleven and 7-Eleven Inc. claims that since the store first opened last November, the three workers were paid $6 to $6.50 an hour. New Jersey minimum wage is $8.38 an hour.

The store has claimed workers signed documents saying they would not make claims against the store. Mr. Martindell said his clients don’t read English and are not bound by any document they might have signed regarding claims.

“This sort of thing is very common in Princeton,” Mr. Martindell said last week. “Folks are concerned about it because it can lead to all sorts of abuse. A lot of these folks live in Princeton and pay high rents to live here. They are paid below minimum wage and work extraordinarily long hours. In microcosm, it’s a concern of the same thing you see on the national scene, which is the imbalance in income between the haves and the have-nots.”

Wage and hour laws were adopted on a national basis to deal with these issues, Mr. Martindell said. “We should enforce them,” he continued. “Instead of inventing new techniques to deal with the issue, we could just enforce what’s already available to us. People in town, instead of just reading about it in the national papers, can actively pursue it in their own back yard by making the owners of restaurants and landscape companies and convenience stores aware that they’re being watched and can be held accountable. That’s what this demonstration is all about.”

Ms. Juega said the problem is “very generalized. Roger has had to sue 7-Eleven before. The service sector in general, the cash economy, businesses that work with a lot of cash, are prone to this kind of abuse. They can have workers off the books and pay them under the table. If workers are desperate enough, they accept the conditions.”

Members of the public have spoken at recent Princeton Council meetings in favor of an anti-wage-theft ordinance. Other New Jersey municipalities such as New Brunswick have measures in place that require businesses to comply with laws regarding unpaid wages. Council adopted an ordinance in 2014 geared to the issue in the landscaping industry, and advocates want it expanded to include other industries as well.