Former and current employees of a Far North Side daycare are demanding restitution after they say their employer shortchanged them of thousands of dollars in compensation.
Workers allege that Little Angels Day Care Center owes them more than $24,000 in unpaid wages. Alongside workers’ rights organization Arise Chicago and community organizing group Communities United, workers are now stepping forward to insist that the business give them their due — in full.
“I love my job,” former worker Alexandra Moreno said at a news conference outside the daycare center at 6407 N. Maplewood Ave. Thursday afternoon. “But I didn’t love not getting paid.”
As she spoke, Moreno was flanked by other former workers, community members and labor rights and faith leaders. Holding signs that read, “Stop exploiting our passion,” and “Little Angels, pay us what you owe us,” the group called out to the business across the street. “Pay up now!” they chanted. “Pay up now!”
In June, workers sent the daycare center a collective letter listing owed wages with a request for payment, Arise and Communities United said in a joint news release. The owner did not comply with the request, organizers said. On Thursday, organizers and workers tried to deliver an updated demand letter to the center’s front door. A woman who appeared to work at the center would not allow the group inside. Organizers left a copy of the letter on the floor of the business’ entryway.
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The letter, which was written on behalf of workers, details seven allegations of wage theft. Affected personnel are owed between $1,050 and nearly $7,500 each, the letter alleges.
“As concerned community members, Arise Chicago informs you that failure to pay employees could constitute a substantial violation of the Illinois Payment and Collection Act,” the letter reads. “Your company had 14 days (after) each employee’s respective last date of employment to pay all owed amounts and has failed to do so.”
The letter asks for a response by Sept. 9.
Moreno worked at Little Angels between November 2024 and August 2025, she said, speaking with the Tribune after Thursday’s conference. Since high school, the 22-year-old had known that she wanted to work with children. Little Angels was the first job that allowed her to make that aspiration a reality.
In her time with Little Angels, she took pride in doing the little things with her young clients — changing diapers, naptime, finding activities to fill their time. But as the months went on, she came to realize that she couldn’t stay.
When she joined the daycare, Moreno had heard from other teachers that their employer could be slow to deliver checks, she said. She didn’t think much of it at first. But then she started to see a delay in her own compensation, Moreno recalled.
She remembers speaking with her family at the time and wondering, “Should I leave or should I stay and still continue working … knowing that some months (and) days, (they’re) not gonna pay me.”
To date, Moreno says that she is owed two checks from Little Angels amounting to just over $1,000. She misses her kids.
Six wage complaints have been sent to labor regulators, two with the Illinois Department of Labor and four with the Chicago Office of Labor Standards, according to Arise.
The Illinois Department of Labor in a statement to the Tribune confirmed that as of Thursday afternoon, there were two open claims filed against a daycare facility named Little Angels at 3613 W. Devon Ave. in North Park. Business filings with the state show that there is a Little Angels Early Childhood Center, Inc., actively registered at the Devon address, as well as a Little Angels Day Care Center, Inc., actively registered at 6407 N. Maplewood.
The agent, president and director of both the Maplewood and Devon centers are registered under the same names in business filings, according to state records online.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson with the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection stated the department does not comment on active BACP Office of Labor Standards investigations.
Calls to both the Devon and Maplewood centers went unanswered Thursday afternoon. Business representatives, as listed in state filings, could not be immediately reached for comment. A Tribune reporter was denied entry into the Maplewood center on Thursday.
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Cook County Circuit Court records show the Illinois Department of Labor filed a breach of contract claim against Little Angels at Maplewood in 2012, accusing the business of underpaying two employees by thousands of dollars. The case was ultimately dismissed after the parties reached a settlement, records show.
“Do what is right,” former worker Jasmin Ramboyong demanded at Thursday’s conference. “Pay the workers. Pay them on time and every time. The law requires it, we worked for it, we earned it, we deserve it.”
Ramboyong alleges that she is owed thousands for unpaid wages, as well as compensation for a pay increase that she says she was promised but never received. Ramboyong worked for Little Angels for a total of seven years between 2019 and March, when she ultimately left.
“Teaching young children has always been my passion,” she said. “But I felt like my passion was being used to take advantage of me.”