To DoL: Stand Up to Bosses Who Steal Pay

Worker Centers & Interfaith Worker Justice Unite for the Fight

At a noon rally on a chilly, gray day, November 19, supporters of the Workers' Rights Center and the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin gathered to draw attention to the silent but growing problem of wage theft in this country. 

A worker spoke of having hours shaved from his paycheck as a cook at a popular new restaurant. Another explained how she had been promised one wage as a janitor but, when she received her first paycheck, she found she was receiving 75 cents less per hour. When she complained, she was fired and not given her final paycheck. A third worker was never paid overtime, although she regularly worked over forty hours a week. 

The rally on the steps of the State Capitol with workers, clergy and labor rights activists, was one of more than two dozen similar events being held that day, a National Day of Action, to stop the epidemic of wage theft.

Patrick Hickey, director of the Workers’ Rights Center, explained that the cases highlighted were representative of the hundreds of cases that worker centers across the country see each year. 

“In certain industries, particularly among immigrant workers, wage and hour violations have been so commonplace that they are becoming the norm,”  said Hickey. “The Department of Labor has failed to do its job of upholding the Fair Labor Standards Act and assuring the most basic rules in the workplace.  We are here today to call for a major overhaul of the DOL!”

“We are working with other worker centers across the country as part of Interfaith Worker Justice to demand change – and change is coming,” said Hickey.

The Wage Theft Prevention Act (HR3303), introduced by Congressman George Miller (D-CA) in July, amends the Fair Labor Standards Act so that the DOL can offer stronger protections for workers. The bill will do away with a statute of limitations that gave the DOL only two years to resolve a wage complaint. This important first step also allows workers to file private lawsuits while the DOL is still investigating a complaint.

Interfaith Worker Justice and its network of 25 worker centers is calling on Congress, the DOL, worker advocates, and the business community to take the following additional measures:

• Educate and raise public consciousness of the crisis of wage theft. The greatest stimulus for the economy would be for all workers to receive their legally earned wages, which they would spend in their communities.

• Pass a national mandate requiring employers to provide workers with pay stubs that give complete information on the number of hours worked and how pay and deductions were calculated, and ensure meaningful enforcement of this law.

• Conduct targeted investigations of industries and companies that the DOL and community organizations have identified as willful, repeat violators.

• Assess meaningful penalties that would deter wage theft and punish its perpetrators.

• Create meaningful wage theft prevention partnerships between government agencies and community organizations. Agencies that should be at the table include: Wage and Hour Division of the DOL, state Departments of Labor, OSHA and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (bosses who steal wages are also likely to violate health and safety and anti-discrimination laws and regulations), and county and municipal agencies that can help create innovative programs.

These agencies should collaborate with community-based worker advocates, labor unions, congregations and faith-based organizations (often the first place a worker turns for help), and academic partners.

Members of Congress (House and Senate) are looking at new legislation to accomplish these goals and legislation is expected to be introduced early in 2010.

“Here in Madison we will be reaching out to our local representatives to ask them to sign on in support of this and other legislation that addresses the serious issue of wage theft,” said Hickey.