Jobs with Justice Blog » wage theft

Wage Theft Ordinance, Victory in Miami-Dade!

Kit Rafferty — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:59:14 +0000

South Florida Jobs with Justice and our community coalition partners on the Wage Theft Ordinance Task Force had a huge victory on September 22nd at the Miami-Dade budget hearings. The county removed the funding in the 2011 budget for the for enforcement of the Wage Theft Ordinance. Since the passage of the Wage Theft Ordinance in 2010, $580,000 in lost wages have been collected from scofflaw employers for the workers in Miami-Dade County.

Recognizing that without enforcement there would be little or no wage recovery, South Florida Jobs with Justice and the Wage Theft Task Force went into action. We visited Commissioners and deluged the Mayor’s office with phone calls. When we were called to speak at the budget hearings, the Mayor announced that the funding for the Wage Theft enforcement position in the Department of Small Business Development had been restored.

It was quite a victory! A big thanks to SF JwJ Board member, Fran Menes, who “herded cats” as the Wage Theft Task Force Coordinator. South Florida Jobs with Justice Board member, John Ratliff who attended the hearing, commented: “Good job at the podium and before

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DC Workers, Faith Leaders Speak Out Against Wage Theft

DC Jobs with Justice — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:45:28 +0000

“Wage theft is a crime” was the theme of a rally and press event on Thursday, Nov. 18th that brought together workers, faith leaders, and community supporters. Held in front of the DC Metropolitan Police Dept. Headquarters, the rally gave workers a chance to speak out about the silent crime of wage theft and to call on the police and DC government to do more to protect workers.

The Union de Trabajadores, with DC Jobs with Justice, Interfaith Worker Justice of Greater Washington, the DC Employment Justice Center, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and other allies have been working for several years to improve the options open to workers to recover wages. While the DC Wage and Hour office has implemented many of the recommendations from workers, the office still lacks the staff and resources necessary and doesn’t have the authority to levy fines or penalties against employers who

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Food AND Medicine Rally in Bangor Marks National Day of Action Against Wage Theft

Benjamin Marriner Pratt — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:34:37 +0000

Food AND Medicine, an affiliate of Jobs with Justice and Interfaith Worker Justice, held a rally and press conference in front of the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor, Maine yesterday to bring attention to the injustice of wage theft and particularly the egregious misclassification of employees as “independent contractors.” The rally was a part of the Interfaith Worker Justice National Day of Action Against Wage Theft.

Willie Wilcox, a Bangor janitor, was recently awarded $4,000 dollars in back unemployment benefits after the state determined he had been misclassified as an “independent contractor.” Willie spoke of his experience at the rally, stating:

It’s not just one worker feeling the pain when someone gets misclassified, it is also the entire state, and all the businesses that don’t cheat their workers. Because I was misclassified and I spoke up about the way I was treated, I’m now
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Cardinal, Los Angeles Mayor Hear from Car Wash Workers

Ricardo Valadez — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:14:11 +0000

National Workers’ Rights Board hearing exposes wage theft, safety violations; highlights need for collective bargaining for car wash workers in Los Angeles, Nation.

Yesterday at Los Angeles City Hall, members of the Jobs with Justice National Workers’ Rights Board (WRB) were joined by other distinguished guests to hear gripping testimony about the hazards facing car wash workers. Over 250 union and community members packed the room to overflowing to hear from workers, consumer, health and safety advocates, and United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the panel and the audience, thanking the WRBs’ leadership for protecting workers, and praising the courage of the workers who are speaking out. The Mayor pledged to remain engaged in this fight. “We look forward to reviewing the recommendations from this board for addressing abuses in this industry,” said the Mayor. “It’s important the public understand what’s going on at car washes in Los Angeles.”

Car wash workers reported being paid

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Sweep of Ithaca Restaurants Finds Labor Law Violations at Most

Pete Meyers — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:30:44 +0000

On December 10th, the New York State Department of Labor’s (DOL) Commissioner Patricia Smith, announced in a joint press conference [video here] with the Tompkins County Workers’ Center and Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson, the findings of a targeted DOL investigation of 22 Tompkins County restaurants. In May 2009, investigators from the DOL’s Division of Labor Standards and Unemployment Insurance found that five of the restaurants – 23 percent – were in full compliance with labor laws. However, the other 17 restaurants – 77 percent of those visited – were found to have violated New York State Labor Laws. Specifically, the DOL found that $87,925 is owed to 93 employees at 6 restaurants for violations such as failure to pay minimum wage and illegal deductions from workers’ paychecks. Commissioner Smith said:

I’m encouraged by the fact that almost one-quarter of the restaurants we checked were in full compliance with labor laws. To them I say thank you – thank you for treating your workers fairly and thank you for
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Tennessee Hosts Traveling Workers’ Rights Board Tour on Wage Theft and Safety Violations

Erica Smiley — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:26:41 +0000

Tennesseans, like others around the country, have watched in horror as the effective enforcement of labor standards dramatically declined. Many employers in the state have been quick to take advantage of a climate that has privileged business interests over workers and their unions. Meanwhile, many agencies charged with upholding workplace standards have lacked the resources, or in some cases the political will, to firmly and consistently enforce the law. And it’s workers and their families that have paid the price!

This fall, Jobs with Justice of East Tennessee (based in Knoxville), Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice (based in Nashville), and the Worker Interfaith Network of Memphis joined forces in a statewide effort to bring to light some of the worst cases of abuse, such as wage theft and violations of workplace health and safety.

Targeting primarily the Tennessee Department of Labor and the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA), the 3 groups are gearing up for a statewide series of workers’ rights board hearings to receive testimony from immigrant workers who have had their pay withheld for no

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InkStop Stores Dry Up, Owing Workers Pay and Health Care

Debbie Kline — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:58:24 +0000

Debbie Kline is Coordinator of Cleveland Jobs with Justice.

Unless you are a real news junkie and read the Business Section of your local newspaper or know one of the former employees, this is one story you may have missed.

InkStop was a chain of 152 convenience stores for office supplies that stocked ink cartridges and small electronics. The stores were located in small plazas in communities where big box office supply stores did not exist. InkStop owner Dirk Kettlewell boasted that the chain would be profitable by the end of this year by using over $80 million from private investors. This was supposed to be the “Sleeping Beauty” business story of the decade, but instead it turned into something that rivals “Psycho.”

The first blow came when all 152 InkStop stores were closed without warning on October 1st. It was business as usual earlier in the day. As the doors were locked for the night, the devastating news came via a faxed and emailed letter to employees

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Immigrant Workers in Boston Win Unpaid Wages

jwjnational — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:17:06 +0000

Cross-posted from Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

After nine months of organizing a grassroots campaign to recover their salaries and educate the immigrant community about their rights as workers, a group of Latino immigrant workers have recovered their salaries that had been unjustly denied them by a cleaning company that subcontracted with Boston area restaurant chain Legal Sea Food.

More than 30 immigrant workers employed by different subcontracting companies to clean in the Cheesecake Factory and Legal Sea Food restaurants were paid with bad checks or not paid at all for regular and overtime hours worked. “The workers are eager to continue the campaign to recover all of their wages, as only one company has agreed to pay so far and there are still workers who have had their rights violated,” stated Yessenia Alfaro, Organizing Director of the Chelsea Collaborative and board member of the Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.

“The violation of labor rights is a systemic problem affecting all workers in this country and immigrant workers are even more vulnerable to this exploitation,” said Patricia Montes,

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