WAGE THEFT "APPROVED" BY THE GOP ON 07/23/2014

(Photo courtesy of rocunited.org.)

WAGE THEFT IS ON THE RISE

IN AMERICA

According to a People’s World article posted 07/28/2014, wage theft is on the rise, but the GOP-run House Education and Workforce Committee chaired by Michigan Republican Tim Wahlberg is discouraging the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division from pursuing the claims made by workers and their lawyers. The GOP requested a report on the subject from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, which indicates that the steep increase in claims results from more claims by lawyers.

The House Committee is urging the Wage and Hour Division to provide more in the way of “compliance assistance” to employers, rather than fining employers for their non-compliance with labor and wage laws.

The Wage and Hour Division enforces minimum wage laws, overtime pay laws and child labor laws. In 2009 an academic report on violations in the three largest cities in the U.S., New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, found a number of disturbing issues to be prevalent. A shocking 68% of the workers surveyed in the study reported having had their wages shorted in the week prior to the survey.

Other results included:

• More than 25% of workers surveyed were paid less than the legal minimum wage.
• 60% of those workers were paid at least $1.00 per hour less than the minimum wage.
• Nearly 25% of the workers surveyed either arrived early or stayed late, and 70% of those workers received no compensation for the extra work they performed.
• Among workers who earn the bulk of their pay in tips, 30% were paid less than the $2.13 per hour employers are required to pay them.
• One in eight tipped workers also reported that their tips were skimmed by their employer or supervisor, further reducing their income.
• The average worker who reported wage theft lost 18% of their pay, and most workers do not report the wage theft.
• 43% of workers who do report wage theft are retaliated against by employers.
• 75% of workers surveyed were shorted overtime pay.
• Most of the workers who reported wage theft were women.

In the following 12 job types, more than half of the workers surveyed reported being paid no overtime wages:

1. Child care, at 90.2%
2. Stock and office clerks, at 86%
3. Home health care workers, at 82.7%
4. Beauty, dry cleaning and general repair workers, at 81.9%
5. Car wash workers and parking attendants at 77.9%
6. Waiters, cafeteria workers and bartenders, at 77.9%
7. Retail salespeople, at 76.2%
8. Janitors and grounds workers, at 71.2%
9. Garment workers, at 69.9%
10. Cooks and dishwashers, at 67.8%
11. Construction workers, at 66.1%
12. Cashiers, at 58.8%

The House Committee decided on 07/23/2014 to ignore the data, instead focusing on the increasing numbers of lawsuits. The Committee seems to identify with employers who steal from employees much more than they empathize with the workers being stolen from, and ruled against improved enforcement efforts in favor of having the Department of Labor provide more help and guidance to employers about their responsibilities. This reasoning is in line with the former Bush administration’s response to the issue of wage theft, which would seem to suggest that improving guidance to employers has done nothing to stem the instance of wage theft since that political era.

The findings reported suggest the total dollar value of stolen wages amounts to more than $56.4 million per week in the cities of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles alone. Logical reflection on the enormity of the problem tells us that the practice of offering guidance to employers about how to stop stealing pay from employees isn’t working, and that more serious enforcement against thieving employers is necessary.

And the GOP shows us yet again that they don’t care about the working poor at all.