Today: National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft
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Workers, community leaders and religious activists are holding rallies, prayer vigils and other actions in more than 40 cities around the country today as part of a National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft.
Wage theft is a national epidemic, which robs millions of workers of billions of dollars they’ve worked for but never seen, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and author of the book Wage Theft in America.
During a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, Bobo said:
Too many workers can’t buy a Thanksgiving turkey because employers have stolen their wages. Wage theft is not a small, isolated situation. It’s a national epidemic.
Wage theft affects workers like Cleve Williams, who worked for a city contractor in Cincinnati. Williams told the press conference he was fired after he organized his fellow workers to fight for a living wage. The city’s law required the comapny, which holds a city contract, to pay a minimum wage. But Williams says it took three years to get the wages raised to the legal level.
Check Out Online Resource Center for Wage Theft
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Wage theft has become a national epidemic. A recent study found that low-wage workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles are routinely denied proper overtime pay and often are paid less than minimum wage.
Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) is highlighting their stories at its new Wage Theft Online Resource Center, which also includes a list of resources and information about the wage theft crisis. Click here to visit the Wage Theft Online Resource Center.
Join IWJ in National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft
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Wage theft is a national epidemic. A recent study found that low-wage workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles are routinely denied proper overtime pay and often are paid less than minimum wage. The average low-wage worker lost more than $2,600 in annual income due to the violations, 15 percent of a worker’s yearly earnings. The illegal underpayment or non-payment of wages affects millions of workers each year, forcing many to choose between paying their rent and feeding their families.
Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and its affiliated groups around the country are preparing to kick off a national Wage Theft campaign that will shine the spotlight on this injustice. You can help.
Join IWJ and thousands of supporters on Nov. 19 for a National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft. Across the nation, faith communities and activists will mobilize to host events to educate the public about wage theft, organize delegations of faith leaders to meet with state and federal legislators or hold rallies and prayer vigils for victims of wage theft.
For more information, contact Cara Gold (cgold@iwj.org) or 1-773-728-8400, ext. 34.
Take Part in Labor in the Pulpits this Labor Day Weekend
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Each Labor Day weekend, Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and the AFL-CIO sponsor the Labor in the Pulpits /on the Bimah /in the Minbar program, which highlights the shared goals of the faith community and the union movement for a new vision for justice in our communities.
As part of Labor in the Pulpits, union members serve as guest speakers in congregations to speak out about their faith, work and the union movement. Some AFL-CIO central labor councils use this program as an opportunity to host a Faith and Labor meeting in which participants discuss important issues facing workers in their local communities and reaffirm their shared commitments to social justice. This year, more than 1,000 faith congregations are participating in Labor in the Pulpits.
Over the years, the Labor in the Pulpits program has helped thousands of congregations focus their Labor Day weekend services on the injustices facing low-wage workers and the religious community’s efforts to support those workers’ struggles for living wages and family-sustaining benefits.
In the Field: High Momentum for Employee Free Choice Act
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Reports are piling in from around the country from union members and their allies in the faith, civil rights, small business and environmental communities who are helping advance the Employee Free Choice Act and workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
In Maine, the Sierra Club, along with Bill Murphy, director of the University of Maine’s Bureau of Labor Education, held a press conference to announce that the environmental community is strongly in favor of Employee Free Choice, which they say will ensure workers have a voice in how businesses operate in their communities.
In Fort Collins, Colo., the Rev. Daniel Klawitter of Interfaith Worker Justice, led a community meeting in support of the Employee Free Choice Act that helped raise funds for an area food bank. Union members and members of Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, joined him in supporting the food bank and the freedom to form unions, which Klawitter said was “the most effective anti-poverty program” available to workers.
Interfaith Worker Justice: We Can Change the Nation
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The nation’s economic crisis presents an opportunity for those who believe in justice to create long-lasting, fundamental changes, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ).
In her keynote address last night before hundreds of participants at IWJ’s 2009 Leadership Summit in New Orleans, Bobo used the biblical story of Jonah as an illustration of the difficulties coalitions of faith-based groups and unions face in trying to ensure that workers are paid a decent wage and treated fairly. Just as Jonah was called to help save the sinful city of Ninevah, we are called, Bobo says, to help save our nation.
The nation’s economy is in turmoil. No one believes Big Business has our best interest at heart. No one thinks trickle-down can work. No one will be fooled into putting Social Security into the stock market. No one trusts the bankers. Oh yes, it is a new day. Ninevah will never be the same.
As a nation, we are going through a period of mourning, grieving. It is an economic moment like none other in my lifetime. We have the opportunity to change Ninevah, to save Ninevah–and frankly, just in the nick of time.
Faith Community Delivers Strong Message for Employee Free Choice
Across a wide variety of denominations and faith, dozens of religious groups have come out in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, united in their belief that the Employee Free Choice Act is a critical reform to rebuild a fair economy and restore to all workers the dignity and freedom they deserve.
Calling the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act a “moral responsibility,” Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and 38 other faith-based organizations, representing a broad and diverse coalition, sent a joint letter to members of the U.S. Senate and House asking Congress to act now and pass laws to protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. The Employee Free Choice Act, they say, will strengthen not only individual workers, but families, communities and the economy that sustains us all.
From the Field: Employee Free Choice Actions Everywhere
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| USW members Ed Sadusky and Ken Matz struggled for three years to form a union and get a first contract. |
With members of Congress at home for the April congressional recess, the grassroots campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act is in high gear, with more than 300 events taking place around the country in support of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. Here are some highlights of this nationwide effort.
Last Tuesday, hundreds of workers rallied for Employee Free Choice in Harrisburg, Pa. Among the speakers were Ed Sadusky and Ken Matz, two workers at a steel plant in Cressona, Pa., who were subjected to intimidation, harassment and management roadblocks in their attempt to form a union. Their efforts to bargain for a better life were thwarted by corporate pressure and delays, and it took them two and a half years to get a fair first contract. Their story illustrates why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
GAO: Labor Department Failing Miserably in Enforcing Wage Laws
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UPDATE: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced the department’s Wage and Hour Division will add 250 new investigators, a staff increase of more than a third. The agency already has begun the process of adding 150 new investigators to its field offices. In addition, another 100 investigators will be hired to ensure that contractors on economic recovery projects comply with the applicable laws. This is a big step in the right direction to rebuild the agency, which lost more than 200 investigators during the Bush administration.
The federal agency that is supposed to protect workers and enforce minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws is failing miserably, leaving low-income workers vulnerable to wage theft. In a report released today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division “has left thousands of actual victims of wage theft who sought federal government assistance with nowhere to turn.”
GAO investigators posing as fictitious complainants filed 10 common complaints with Wage and Hour district offices across the country. In one case, the division failed to investigate a complaint that underage children in Modesto, Calif., were working during school hours at a meatpacking plant with dangerous machinery.
Inequality Could Keep Economy from Full Recovery
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The federal stimulus package is a good way to jump-start our economy, but it is not enough to solve the deep crisis of inequality that has been building in this country for decades. A recent article says the government needs to act quickly to start addressing the growing income gap.
In an article in The Nation online, Christine Owens and Annette Bernhardt, executive director and policy co-director, respectively, of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), say working families were struggling to survive even before the current recession. Although U.S. workers are more productive than ever, they are faced with stagnant wages, disappearing benefits and little job security. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that eight of the top 10 occupations projected to generate the most jobs by 2016 are low-wage jobs in the service sector.
