Whether they were classified as employees or independent contractors was a distinction lost on Lucy Contreras and Gustavo Cabrera, 2 of 31 maintenance workers arrested during last month’s courthouse sweeps.

Both said they got their jobs through connections, who handled all their paperwork. They never knew who had hired them, and never knew their job classification. All they knew was that they had jobs.

Contreras, a mother of three from Guatemala, said she’d been out of work for several months when she bumped into a friend who worked at TriState Enterprises.

“She offered me a job. She knew about my status,” Contreras said through an interpreter.

The woman brought the job application to Contreras’s home. “There was another piece of paper to sign,” which Contreras described as an affidavit swearing that she had never had a criminal conviction.

Her friend recommended that Contreras bring the document to a notary in Providence’s Olneyville section, who stamped it for $1. Contreras returned the document to her friend.

Three days later, her friend told her, “You have the job.”

Contreras went to work at Providence Superior Court, cleaning the toilets, hallways and offices.

She wore a TriState shirt, earned $7.40 an hour for 25 hours a week. She said the paychecks TriState delivered to the courthouses reflected no benefits, no insurance, no tax withholdings.

“All I know, is that I think I worked as an employee,” she said.

But Contreras provided The Journal a copy of one of her paychecks, which includes the notation “bill,” signaling that she was billing TriState — and most likely was an independent contractor in the company’s eyes.

Her job ended with her arrest by federal immigration agents on July 15. She was released on humanitarian grounds because of a medical condition.

GUSTAVO CABRERA had a similar hiring experience, starting with Falcon Maintenance.

Cabrera said a friend who worked at Falcon offered him the job in February 2007 — a job that he eventually continued with TriState Enterprises.

Cabrera’s friend, who worked for Falcon at the J. Joseph Garrahy Judicial Complex in Providence, brought a job application to Cabrera’s house, Cabrera said last week through an interpreter.

Cabrera said he never applied in person at Falcon, whose listed address is the Johnston residence of Vincent D’Elia Jr., company president. He was never interviewed.

“Name, Social Security number, address” is largely all the application asked for, said Cabrera, who came from Guatemala years ago. Cabrera said he signed only one other document: a letter granting Falcon permission to run a criminal background check on him.

At his friend’s suggestion, Cabrera had it stamped by the same Olneyville notary as Contreras.

“I gave it all back to my friend,” Cabrera said of the paperwork. Days later, he started working at the Garrahy courthouse, where he cleaned the holding cells on the 5 to 9 p.m. shift.

Meanwhile, “the company didn’t explain anything” about his employment terms, said Cabrera. “Nothing, nothing. I didn’t know anything.” He said he never filled out any other forms, such as the required federal I-9 verification form. The company provided no benefits, no insurance, and withheld no taxes from his pay. He said the company paid $7.40 an hour. His Falcon paychecks were without stubs.

Cabrera worked from February through Dec. 31 last year, when Falcon’s contract ran out. That day, TriState operations manager Lucilia Ramos went to the courthouse and asked the workers, “do they want to work for her at TriState?” Cabrera said yes, and started on Jan. 1.

Falcon had never provided uniforms, and the monthly allotment of cleaning supplies and trash bags usually ran out early, he said. But TriState provided labeled shirts, a modicum of instruction, and sufficient cleaning supplies. He still earned $7.40 an hour, cleaned the same holding cells, and worked with the same dearth of information about his employment classification.

Cabrera was arrested on July 15, fitted with an electronic monitoring device, and released. He picked up his last check at TriState’s office in North Providence. It was the first time, he said, that he had ever been to the company’s office.

With reports from staff writer Jennifer Jordan.

kziner@projo.com