The Crime No One Talks About - Wage Theft

I haven't had much time to read lately, but Kim Bobo's book, Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid - And What We Can Do About It, will be the next one I pick up. Bobo is the Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice.

Here's a short synopsis from Joe's Union Review:

Bobo says wage theft in America is the crime wave no one talks about, and she is right. Billions of dollars' worth of wages are stolen from millions of workers in the United States every year. The scope of these abuses is as staggering as it is wrong - paying workers far less than the legal minimum wage, purposefully misclassifying employees as independent contractors, and illegally denying workers overtime pay. But now people are starting to take notice -- and it is my hope that they do so starting with this very good book.

Chapter 5: Organizing to Stop Wage Theft: Why Unions Matter, starts with a story of 39 year-old Mercedes Herrerra. She came to this country from Mexico, lives in Houston since 1994 and works as a janitor for staffing agencies cleaning buildings and sports facilities. Bobo says she was never paid for overtime!

Her employers would tell her, "There is no overtime. After 40 hours you work for someone else." (This is not legal).

The story continues that after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the worker was hired by a cleaning firm contracted to clean the Reliance Center. She was in charge of keeping the bathrooms clean. Her staffing agency charged her $100 per week for her shoes, gloves, masks, cleaning supplies, and shuttle rides to the Center. She wasn't told when she was hired that such charges would be taken from her paycheck. As a result, her hourly wage fell significantly below minimum wage. (This is not legal).

The lower paid workers in our country are treated like crap. Union activists have been saying this for a long time. Some claim we blow it out of proportion or distort the reality -- for Herrerra, according to Bobo, worse than the wages stolen was her ill treatment. Managers would scream at her and her colleagues. Some would tell workers they were old and worthless.

You can read more here and here. Ted Kennedy has said the book offers "bold, practical, and progressive solutions for how policymakers and advocates can end the growing crisis of wage theft in America."

(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)