From Newsday: LI immigrants fight to win wages they say they are owed

The immigrants came in one after another. One said he was owed $6,000. Another said he was docked $3,000. Three others said they were owed $1,900, $648 and $270.

In the North Fork Hispanic Apostolate headquarters in Riverhead, Sister Margaret Smyth and attorney Dan Rodgers counseled the men for upcoming court appearances.

“If they ask you about your immigration status, you have no obligation to answer,” Rodgers said. “The only reason we’re in court is to obtain wages for work you performed.”

Advocates say many more immigrants are filing claims for unpaid wages on the East End than last year – nearly 140 so far, already exceeding the total for all of last year.

Five immigrants came to Smyth’s office Thursday, saying a painting company owes them $5,000 each. “Every month, we have 30 or more cases,” Smyth said. “Some of it’s the economy. Some of it’s just people being bad people.”

Federal and state law says workers – regardless of immigration status – are entitled to be paid for work performed.

“The fact is that the worst thing you can do is steal a man’s labor and that’s what’s going on more and more,” said Rodgers, who does the cases pro bono.

Roberto Rodriguez, 46, said he was owed $648. He was so desperate, he pawned a gold chain for $200, he said. “I just want to be paid my just wage.”

Nationally, some groups say they’ve seen a similar increase, though the Workplace Project in Hempstead said it has not noticed a rise in complaints.

“This is a big problem that existed but is being exacerbated by the bad economy,” said Raj Nayak, a staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project in Manhattan.

Advocates say while most cases filed in local courts are won on paper – usually by default, when the defendant doesn’t show up – the judgments are difficult to enforce.

When defendants do show, Rodgers tries to negotiate a settlement. But in many cases, only one or two payments will be made. “It’s never-ending,” Smyth said. “I have a whole pile of cases where they didn’t pay.”…

Wage theft, especially from those with the fewest avenues available for seeking justice is rampant in the United States as is the intentional misclassification of workers.

More on this in What Workers Face This Labor Day (see also Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says from the NY Times)

On Monday, President Obama will celebrate America’s 127th Labor Day by giving a speech on “jobs, the economy and maybe a little health care” at the annual AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati, OH. Despite positive indications that the U.S. economy is beginning to “climb out of the worst recession in decades,” Obama’s speech will come at a difficult time for America’s workers as job losses continue. In the current recession, 6.7 million jobs have been lost through July, with another 216,000 jobs lost in August. Even those who are still working are facing significant challenges. Earlier this week, a new report financed by the Ford, Joyce, Haynes, and Russell Sage Foundations found that labor protections in America “are failing significant numbers of workers.” According to the survey, which was “the most comprehensive examination of wage-law violations in a decade,” 68 percent of the low wage workers who were interviewed said they were subjected to pay violations in their previous work week alone. This included 26 percent who were paid less than the minimum wage and 76 percent who didn’t receive legally required overtime pay. In all, the researchers discovered that “the typical worker had lost $51 the previous week through wage violations, out of average weekly earnings of $339,” adding up to a 15 percent loss in pay. The report “clearly shows we still have a major task before us,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in a statement, promising that the Department of Labor in the Obama administration “will be marked by an emphasis on the protection” of the rights of America’s workers…

I was at a conference on unemployment and workforce issues last week. During the conference nineteen state workforce agencies joined in a call to extend unemployment insurance benefits.

The news at the conference was sobering. Panelists like William D. Rodgers, III, Ph.D., Professor and Chief Economist and Carl E. Van Horn, Director and Professor of Public Policy both of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University and Lawrence Chimerine, Ph.D., Managing Director and Chief Economist at the Economic Strategy Institute all point to a recovery that is underway; with economic indicators pointing to a sustained recovery. Unfortunately it will be a jobless recovery (see U.S. Job Seekers Exceed Openings by Record Ratio from the NY Times for instance). We may not see job gains or low unemployment again until 2018. People will be desperate and there will have to be significant changes in the way we assist and work with these folks. These workers will need training to prepare themselves for this new environment and for the jobs that are available — an investment in their potential.

The assessment that struck home for me was a review of our investment in human potential. The value of our investment in the people of this nation has declined for decades (see here for instance). What we pour into education, health, wellness, culture, family, and leisure points to a wholly wrong set of priorities and an ethic where human life is considered cheap — life as just another cog in the machine. Funny how people of faith, calling government, industry, and society on the carpet over this, have spoken the truth here. Too bad — the message has fallen on deaf ears and over relatively the same period of time.

Oh, and speaking of people who do not invest in or respect human potential, Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming is near the top of the list. He believes that people shouldn’t be empowered to take care of themselves because they just might form unions. As with many Washington insiders he thinks that people should seek the approval of business and/or government before they do anything. I can’t believe he’s from the west.