wage theft
kkrisberg | October 10, 2014“Yes, you can use my name because it doesn’t matter. They have already done everything they can do to me.”
Those are words from Eliceo, a former dairy farm worker in upstate New York. Earlier this year, Eliceo, 36, decided to speak up and share his story with local advocates who are tirelessly working to improve conditions on New York dairy farms and end persistent reports of workplace safety violations, preventable work-related injuries, wage theft, exploitation and in some cases, worker deaths. His story of dangerous farm conditions, inadequate to nonexistent safety training and an employer…
kkrisberg | September 9, 2014Across the country, roughly 10 million construction workers spend each day in a dangerous and fickle industry. They hang drywall, lay carpet, shingle roofs. Yet in the eyes of their bosses, they aren't employees due the benefits the government requires.
That’s the intro to an extensive series of articles that McClatchy DC recently published called “Contract to Cheat,” which chronicles a year-long investigation into the consequences of misclassifying workers as independent contractors and how government regulators are doing nothing to stop it. The in-depth series offers investigations from…
kkrisberg | August 27, 2014As Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes moves toward a 2016 presidential run, it seems he can’t talk enough about the so-called “Texas Miracle." But upon closer inspection, it seems clear that a “miracle” based on small government, big business tax breaks and laissez-faire regulations is hardly a blessed event for Texas workers.
In an in-depth article on workplace deaths published in the Dallas Morning News, reporter James Gordon writes that Texas workers face the highest workplace death rates in the nation. In fact, Gordon notes that a Texas worker is 12 percent more likely to be killed on the job…
kkrisberg | August 12, 2014It didn’t make a lot of headlines, but a new presidential executive order could be a big deal for workers' rights and safety. On July 31, President Obama signed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which requires federal contractors to disclose prior labor violations and prohibits contractors from forcing workers into arbitration to settle workplace discrimination cases.
The National Law Review explains the order in detail. According to writers Dwight Armstrong and Nisha Verma, the order applies to federal contracts valued at more than $500,000 and could affect a substantial…
kkrisberg | June 17, 2014Just yesterday, the Obama administration announced it would take executive action to protect certain workers against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Associated Press reports that the president plans to sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The order is estimated to protect about 14 million workers who are not currently protected against such discrimination. The administration did not say exactly when the president would sign the executive order.
The Associated Press article…
kkrisberg | May 20, 2014The Pump Handle’s own Celeste Monforton was quoted in an investigative piece on the tank cleaning industry and the dangerously toxic environments that its workers face. In an investigative article in the Houston Chronicle, reporter Ingrid Lobet found that even though industry workers are coming into contact with extremely toxic and often combustible chemicals, the methods that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration uses to track tank and barge cleaning operations is woefully deficient.
Lobet begins her story with the life and death of David Godines, a Houston tank cleaner found…
kkrisberg | May 16, 2014Two years ago, domestic workers in Houston, Texas, took part in the first national survey documenting the conditions they face on the job. The experience — a process of shedding light on the often isolating and invisible world of domestic work — was so moving that Houston workers decided they didn’t want to stop there. Instead, they decided it was time to put their personal stories to paper.
The result is “We Women, One Woman!: A view of the lived experience of domestic workers,” which was officially released last month. The anthology features the stories of 15 nannies, house cleaners and…
cmonforton | April 17, 2014Going to a job and getting paid appropriately for your time is how it is supposed to work. Doing your job and getting ripped off by not getting paid is wrong and illegal. The economic consequences of wage theft for the victims and their families are profound: the threat and reality of losing utilities, food and housing. One of the single biggest risk factors for ill health is poverty. That makes wage theft a public health problem.
But catching and punishing employer-thieves is difficult. The federal and state enforcement agencies are under resourced and the laws weak. It’s also one thing to…
lborkowski | March 18, 2014Three years after Japan's earthquake and tsunami led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, concerns persist about health effects while the cleanup poses ongoing health and safety challenges.
Living on Earth reports on a lawsuit filed by several US Navy sailors against the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The sailors were part of a relief operation, and their ship sailed into a plume of radioactive dust. Their attorney, Charles Bonner, told Living on Earth that many sailors are now suffering from “leukemias, ulcers, brain tumors, testicular cancers, dysfunctional uterine bleeding,…
kkrisberg | February 21, 2014Last weekend, construction worker Jose Perez stood up and spoke about life as a construction worker in one of then nation’s most prosperous cities. In front of him were hundreds of supporters who had gathered in downtown Austin, Texas, to call on a local developer to treat its workers better. Looming behind him was the new Gables Park Tower, an unfinished luxury apartment complex where construction workers have reported dangerous working conditions and frequent wage violations.
Austin’s Workers Defense Project, a worker-led nonprofit that helps low-income workers fight for better working…
kkrisberg | December 6, 2013There are few factors that shape a person’s health as strongly and predictably as income. And while enforcing wage and labor laws may at first seem outside the purview of public health agencies, Rajiv Bhatia adamantly disagrees. In fact, he says that public health may wield the most persuasive stick in town.
Bhatia is the director of environmental health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and is behind an innovative policy change that uses the agency’s existing regulatory authority to prevent wage theft and support basic labor rights among restaurant workers. Begun in…
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…
kkrisberg | October 25, 2013Wages in the highly profitable fast food industry are so low that more than half of families of front-line fast food workers are enrolled in and depend on public assistance programs to make ends meet. In other words, that seemingly inexpensive burger and fries not only comes with a secret sauce, but a secret cost.
According to "Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast Food Industry," which was released last week, the cost of such public assistance is nearly $7 billion every year, with Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program costs accounting for more than…
cmonforton | September 5, 2013This week, Liz and I have been highlighting parts of our second annual review of U.S. occupational health and safety. The first two sections of the report summarize key studies in the peer-reviewed literature, and an assessment of activities at the federal level. In section three of the report we present high points---and a few low points---from state and local governments on workers’ rights and safety protections. These include:
New laws in Portland, Oregon and New York City requiring many employers to offer paid sick leave to their employees. With 22 percent of the U.S. workforce in…
cmonforton | September 3, 2013As Liz Borkowski noted yesterday, we are following up on a tradition that we started last year to mark Labor Day. We released our second annual review of U.S. occupational health and safety for Labor Day 2013.
Liz explained in her post our objectives in preparing the report. She also highlighted its first section which profiles some of the best research from the year published in both peer-reviewed journals and by non-profit organizations. Here’s a peek at section two of the report on activities at the federal level:
Sequestration and other budget cuts have affected our worker protection…
lborkowski | August 19, 2013Wage theft – when employers fail to pay workers what they’ve earned – has been in the news lately:
In a lawsuit that could become a class-action suit, two former Apple store employees allege that the company failed to pay employees for time spent waiting for bag searches – time they say the employer required them to spend at the worksite, but for which they were off the clock and not paid.
In California, a joint enforcement action by the California Labor Commissioner’s office and CalOSHA (part of the multi-agency Labor Enforcement Task Force) at a Holiday Inn Express construction site has…
kkrisberg | August 16, 2013In their efforts to protect the most vulnerable workers from illegal workplace practices and conditions, worker centers have now attracted the million-dollar ire of formidable anti-union forces. And while advocates say it's a sign of worker centers' success, it's still a worrisome trend that's made it all the way to the halls of Congress.
In late July, a full-page ad ran in the Wall Street Journal accusing worker centers of being fronts for labor unions. The ad was paid for by a group calling itself the Center for Union Facts, a nonprofit with a $3 million-plus budget run by industry lobbyist…
cmonforton | July 25, 2013The fourth largest city in the U.S. may be the next major metropolis taking action against wage theft. Members of Houston's City Council held a public hearing this week to discuss a proposed city ordinance targeted at employers who fail to pay the minimum wage or legally due overtime pay, force employees to work "off the clock," or simply skip out on paying owed wages. In Houston alone, an estimated $750 million are lost every year due to wage theft perpetrated against low-wage workers. The economic consequences for the victims and their families is profound, as is the potential effect on…
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…
Cracking down on deadbeat bosses: Wage theft victory a milestone in Chicago's worker center movement
lborkowski | April 15, 2013by Kim Krisberg
For Angel Nava, Chicago's newly adopted wage theft ordinance is particularly personal.
Until recently, Nava had worked at the same car wash business in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood for 14 years. The 55-year-old employee did it all — washing, detailing, buffing — for about 50 hours each week. Then, his boss decided to stop paying overtime.
In fact, Nava didn't receive the overtime he was owed for the last four years he worked at the car wash. He told me (though a translator) that none of his co-workers were receiving overtime either — "everyone was very upset." Nava said he…