Wage Theft Is an Epidemic. Here’s How We Can Help Fix It

[eridani]

http://talkpoverty.org/2016/02/02/wage-theft-is-epidemic-how-we-can-fix/
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Although Javier*, who immigrated from Mexico with his family, routinely worked 50 to 60 hour weeks for four years in a Philadelphia restaurant’s kitchen, he was never paid properly. When Javier demanded all the unpaid wages and overtime that had accrued, his employer threatened him with immigration consequences and physical violence against him and his family. The employer also called Javier at home repeatedly to threaten him when he learned that Javier had contacted a lawyer at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, a civil legal aid provider. Fearing that the abusive employer would act on his threats, Javier and his family spent days without leaving their home.

Javier’s experience isn’t uncommon. Our civil legal aid attorneys have also represented a crew of cleaners who were locked in a restaurant overnight while they cleaned (and not paid overtime for the additional hours) and construction workers strung along for years with partial weekly payments, among others. We have even had to sue the same employers multiple times on behalf of different workers. And the practice is widespread. A report from Temple University’s Sheller Center found that in any given work week in the Philadelphia area, almost 130,000 workers will be paid less than minimum wage, over 100,000 will experience an overtime violation, and over 80,000 will be forced to work off-the-clock without pay.

Although wage theft is illegal under federal law and under statutes in most states, enforcement is underfunded—sometimes nonexistent. This disproportionately impacts low-wage workers, who are more likely to work in low-regulation and non-union jobs where employers cut corners at their expense. But these workers—who need those wages the most—don’t know where to turn for help when they do not receive a paycheck, fear losing their job if they complain, or simply cannot afford to miss work for the several days that it takes to file a complaint and attend a court hearing. And for immigrant workers like Javier, they are often threatened based on their immigration status when they complain to their boss.

[FreakinDJ]

1. This is why we have to go after the employers

[pipoman]

5. Ultimately....first the workers need to be legitimized....given a path to legitimacy...

With sub 5% unemployment, if more Mexican immigrants continue going back than are coming in, there will be a movement to legitimize immigrants sooner rather than later....the tRumpster doesn't get that we are completely dependent on these people...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Sort of off-topic, but

although so many people say reparations can't happen, they could be considered a long-delayed fix for wage theft on a massive scale. If we're serious about wage theft, it's hard to ignore that hundreds of billions of hours of stolen wages built the country. We can't get that money specifically from the thieves at this date, but that doesn't mean we should repay those stolen wages to the descendants of those who were robbed.

[eridani]

3. Makes sense--but I'd start more recently

Many New Deal programs specifically cut out farm and domestic labor because of the color and gender of those doing that work. We have modern records that could tell us who, and those records are much easier to access than 19th century records about slave ownership.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. I think you'd essentially have to go class-action for slavery reparations.

Rather than tracing genealogies, just figure out how (roughly) how many slaves there were, how much time was stolen from them, put that in modern values, then divvy that up among all African Americans.