'I Worked All Week for Free?': The Horrifying, True Story of $0 Paychecks

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/i-worked-all-week-free-horrifying-true-story-0-paychecks

In the annals of degrading, infuriating labor practices, this one may take a prize: Meet the cleaning workers who received … zero-dollar paychecks.

Now, defying alleged deportation threats and protesting those empty paychecks, a handful of striking guest workers from Jamaica are demanding accountability from the boss who hired them, the companies whose buildings they were cleaning, and the Florida politicians like Marco Rubio who took those companies’ cash.

“The promises made by our employer, Mister Clean, they were so enticing that we borrowed money to get here, over $2,000,” striker Dwight Allen told Salon in a recent interview. But “when we got here … we realized that all of the promises were all false.

“We had to sleep on the floor in overcrowded apartments,” said Allen, while paying their boss rent that sometimes exceeded the low wages and limited hours he provided them. “After getting a paycheck of zero dollars and zero cents” due to rent being deducted, said Allen, “we would still be getting texts from his wife saying that we still have balance of x amount” in remaining rent unpaid. When workers began organizing, he said, “we were threatened in writing from our boss.”

[onethatcares]

1. the rightwing dream for our nation

company stores all over again.

[watoos]

3. Company stores

How about slavery.

[Hydra]

8. Wage slavery works better

People will fight to work in that framework. In blatant slavery, the slaves resist.

[Enthusiast]

4. Exactly...........nt

[Laelth]

5. Spot on. n/t

-Laelth

[IrishAyes]

2. I hope the business owners wind up UNDER the jail.

[Mopar151]

6. Threatened in writing?

Mister Clean is mean and stupid.

[bvar22]

7. Back to the Past, the Company Stores, and legal Slave Labor.

...and it is getting worse.

[Hydra]

9. The 1% are taking it back

And as George Carlin said, "Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care..."

[lpbk2713]

10. Rubio and his pals laughed their asses off over this one over their martinis.

They know exactly what they are doing, they're making a profit and using the law to get away with it. And they will wait a week or two to let things die down a bit and then use the same scam all over again. There's no one to stop them.