WHAT HEELS: Employers Rip Off Workers Who Make The Least: Study
A survey of low-wage workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago - 39 percent of whom were forged documented aliens, 31 percent legal immigrants, 30 percent U.S. citizens - found that 68 percent had experienced at least one pay-related violation in the previous work week, reports The New York Times:
“We were all surprised by the high prevalence rate,” said Ruth Milkman, one of the study’s authors and a sociology professor at the Los Angeles, and the City University of New York. …
In surveying 4,387 workers in various low-wage industries, including apparel manufacturing, child care and discount retailing, the researchers found that the typical worker had lost $51 the previous week through wage violations, out of average weekly earnings of $339. That translates into a 15 percent loss in pay. …
“The conventional wisdom has been that to the extent there were violations, it was confined to a few rogue employers or to especially disadvantaged workers, like undocumented immigrants,” said Nik Theodore, an author of the study and a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.” …
The study found that 26 percent of the workers had been paid less than the minimum wage the week before being surveyed and that one in seven had worked off the clock the previous week. In addition, 76 percent of those who had worked overtime the week before were not paid their proper overtime, the researchers found.
The new study, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,” was conducted in the first half of 2008, before the brunt of the recession hit.
The report also found that it’s standard operating practice for low-wage employers to coerce seriously injured workers not to file workers’ compensation claims.
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