wage laws
kkrisberg | January 24, 2014The day I spoke with Idaho minimum wage activist Anne Nesse, it was quite cold in her hometown of Coeur d'Alene — 29 degrees, to be exact. The harsh winters came up more than once during our conversation about low wages in the northwestern state.
“We’re at the bottom,” Nesse said. “We have the lowest wages in the whole nation and we’re cold up here.”
Staying warm should hardly be a luxury in a state notorious for its cold winters, but keeping up with basic necessities can be a challenge for Idaho’s working families. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Idaho leads the nation in the…
kkrisberg | November 22, 2013This week, Houston became only the second major city in the U.S. South to pass a law to prevent and punish wage theft. It’s a major victory for all workers, but it’s especially significant for the city’s low-wage workers, who lose an estimated $753.2 million every year because of wage theft.
Passed unanimously by the Houston City Council on Wednesday, the new wage theft ordinance provides workers with a formal process to lodge wage theft complaints and puts in place real penalties for employers convicted of stealing workers’ wages. Businesses convicted of wage theft — either civilly or…
lborkowski | May 14, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Earlier this month, Florida lawmakers wrapped up their latest legislative session. And nearly 500 miles south of Tallahassee in Miami-Dade County, workers' rights advocates breathed yet another sigh of relief.
Ever since Miami-Dade adopted the nation's first countywide wage theft ordinance in 2010, it's been under attack. For the first two years after its passage, state legislators tried to pass legislation to pre-empt local communities from passing their own wage theft laws; this last legislative session, they tried again but included a carve out for Miami-Dade and for…