National Day Of Action Targets Growing Wage Theft Across America

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/Channels/Story.aspx?ID=1313311

11/17/2010

Today’s National Day of Action against Wage Theft is focusing attention on the growing problem of employers stealing earned wages from their workers. Jesse Russell reports.

More than 35 cities plan to take part in today’s National Day of Action against Wage Theft. The goal of the day of action is to bring attention to employers who use various means to skirt the law and exploit workers by not paying fair wages. Interfaith Worker Justice is one of the organizations that has been leading the charge. IWJ’s Executive Director Kim Bobo explained during a conference call on Wednesday what the days actions are all about:

: The average low wage worker loses $2,600 per year in unpaid wages. One out of four low wages workers is paid less than the minimum wage. Three-fourth of low wage workers aren’t paid the overtime the law mandates they receive.

Bernie Evers is organizing director for the Ironworkers and he told the story of a contractor in Denver where the majority of workers are immigrants. The workers aren’t always paid what they were promised, overtime, or reimbursement for travel.

: At what cost can a corporation put monetary value above a worker trying to provide for their families.
Today’s National Day of Action against Wage Theft is focusing attention on the growing problem of employers stealing earned wages from their workers. Jesse Russell reports.

More than 35 cities plan to take part in today’s National Day of Action against Wage Theft. The goal of the day of action is to bring attention to employers who use various means to skirt the law and exploit workers by not paying fair wages. Interfaith Worker Justice is one of the organizations that has been leading the charge. IWJ’s Executive Director Kim Bobo explained during a conference call on Wednesday what the days actions are all about:

: The average low wage worker loses $2,600 per year in unpaid wages. One out of four low wages workers is paid less than the minimum wage. Three-fourth of low wage workers aren’t paid the overtime the law mandates they receive.

Bernie Evers is organizing director for the Ironworkers and he told the story of a contractor in Denver where the majority of workers are immigrants. The workers aren’t always paid what they were promised, overtime, or reimbursement for travel.

: At what cost can a corporation put monetary value above a worker trying to provide for their families.

[Tippy]

1. BIG K&R.....for truth & hopefully for justice

[billlll]

2. "Jobs for All" site also covers this issue a little bit IIRC

I was ripped off as a teen burger flipper.
_______JFA site---
Site advised by Clinton Sec. of Labor R Reich.

http://www.njfac.org

PS.--
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[gimme5]

3. Cee Why Aaye

Most Americans are unaware that truck drivers, for the most part, are not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, that little piece of legislation that gives you the right to the minimum wage, to breaks, to overtime, and to access to an agency that's 'supposed' to intervene on your behalf if you ever get ripped off, or fired unjustly, or denied any of your rights under the law. Truck drivers don't have any of those rights.

They are paid by the mile, and if the truck isn't moving, they aren't making money. It's piecework, basically. And it's legal in this country, because 'they say so'. But truckers are extremely vulnerable to being ripped off. If their employer is unscrupulous, as most of them are, they might try to skim the driver's wages, routinely. Or, as it was in my experience, the owner of the company withheld my entire week's earnings. "If we don't get the bills, we don't get paid. If we don't get paid, YOU don't get paid." It sounds fair, on the surface, but the fact is, that although the bills were misplaced, they weren't lost. They had been sent to the office, and would have eventually gotten there, through the courtesy of UPS or TripPak. In any case, the boss had the option to call the customer and get a copy of the bills by fax, which I'm quite certain he did. I never saw a dime of my earnings. I never saw a cent for reimbursement for the oil I paid for out of pocket, for the tolls I paid out of pocket, or anything.

Could I go to the Labor Board with this grievance? No. I wasn't covered by the FLSA, so they had no jurisdiction. My only recourse would be to take my employer to court in his home state. I live two states away, so the chances of getting there were next to zero, especially if I was still working for him. He would have fired me instantly. Not that I wanted to stay working for him, but I wanted to transition to a different job on MY terms, not his.

Now if you consider that it's X number of miles from Point A to Point B, you would expect that you'd be paid for X number of miles. Invariably, the miles paid to the driver are always anywhere from 2% to 15% short. They SAY that it averages out, but in 12 years of driving, I've seen the miles run over on the pay only twice. In those 12 years of driving, I've covered over a million miles. So let's do some quick math. 1,000,000 miles divided by 10 = 100,000 which represent the number of miles I have driven for free. At an average 40 cents per mile, I have lost $40,000.

In addition to this, there is a lot of unpaid work on the docks, doing the fueling, doing the vehicle inspections, doing the paperwork, dealing with customers at the shippers and receivers, dealing with law enforcement at mandatory stops at the weigh stations, and more... the list just goes on. There's a LOT of unpaid work. Count on average about 2 hours a day. At $8.00 an hour for this time, and 290 days a year, that's $4640 per year. Multiply that by 12, and it's $55,680.

I got sick last winter, and was sent home from Illinois to California where I live. I packed up as much as I could carry without collapsing under it, and rode the train home. The federal government disqualifies drivers for certain medical conditions, and I was pretty sick. Almost all of my personal belongings were left behind, with the understanding that they would be cared for or shipped home to me. I left the truck secured, as instructed by the company. In the end, the company callously discarded all my stuff. I estimated about $4000 in clothes, tools, supplies, equipment and personal effects. In addition, the company withheld $60 of my money for the key to one of their locks saying they didn't get it back. I left it in a ziplock bag with the truck's ignition key.

So, if the current state of labor makes you nervous, you should be. The relationship between labor and management in trucking very well could be the future of all workers in this country.