Labor & Employment Law

Wage Theft: The Crime Wave Nobody Talks About

By James Parks

Every day across the country, millions of workers in low-wage jobs are being robbed of billions of dollars they are owed by their employers. A new video by Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) shows how the practice of wage theft is a national epidemic no one is paying attention to.

IWJ says 60 percent of nursing home workers, 100 percent of poultry plant workers and 90 percent of restaurant workers are denied their fair pay at some time.

One such worker is Ryszard Abucewicz of Chicago, who says on the video his employer refused to pay him at all for three consecutive pay periods.

Dianne Enriquez, also in the video, is one of three San Francisco restaurant workers who did not receive overtime pay and sued their employer. They won more than $7,000 in back pay.

Kim Bobo, IWJ executive director and author of Wage Theft in America, says wage theft is ?the crime wave no one talks about.?

It?s really all around us. There are workers who are not getting paid minimum wage, not paid overtime, [are] misclassified as independent contractors (so employers can avoid having to pay benefits), who don?t get all their tips. Some workers get laid off and don?t get their last paycheck. For some workers, they work all day and don?t get paid at all.

A new report, issued earlier this week, backs up IWJ?s findings. Nearly half of immigrant day laborers surveyed in New Jersey were not paid for all the work they completed, according to the report by the Seton Hall Law School’s Center for Social Justice. Some 48 percent of the immigrant day laborers surveyed in seven New Jersey towns reported experiencing at least one instance over the past year in which they were not paid for all the work they had done, and more than half (54 percent) said they had been paid less than promised.

In addition, nearly all of the day laborers (94 percent) said they were not paid overtime, the report found. Bryan Lonegan, Seton Hall law professor and co-author of the report, ?All Work and No Pay: Day Laborers, Wage Theft, and Workplace Justice in New Jersey,? said in a statement:

Unfortunately, immigrant day laborers are just the highly visible tip of the iceberg because wage theft and labor violations happen all the time in restaurants, gas stations, home health care, janitorial, laundries, car washes and beauty and nail salons.

To learn more about IWJ?s wage theft campaign, click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 14, 2011 (boomark / email).