Wage theft a scourge for low-income workers

Wage theft a scourge for low-income workers

John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer | Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Monday, July 18, 2011

Wage theft a scourge for low-income workers

Li Shuang Li (left), a victim of wage theft, and Shaw San Liu are working to stop the practice. Photo: Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle

Li Shuang Li waited tables six days a week in a San Francisco Chinatown restaurant where workers were yelled at for carrying only one pot of tea in each hand.

She had no health insurance, sick days or vacation. There were three servers for a restaurant that sat 80. Shifts could last 10 hours.

For that, the mother of two says she was paid $900 a month – less than $5 an hour.

Li counts herself among the lucky ones.

“Some families are in a much worse situation,” Li, 42, said in Cantonese through an interpreter. “There were workers who were not paid wages for three to 10 months.”

It’s part of a national scourge known as wage theft. More than two-thirds of low-wage workers reported some type of pay-related law violation, according to a 2009 report by the National Employment Law Project, which interviewed 4,387 front-line workers in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

The theft comes in many forms, including paying less than minimum wage, denying meal and bathroom breaks, and forcing employees to work long hours without overtime. In extreme situations, workers are locked into factories or businesses for 24-hour shifts, advocates said.

“It’s a huge problem in the city of San Francisco, in the state of California and nationally,” state Labor Commissioner Julie Su said. By some estimates, California drops $7 billion a year to wage theft in lost tax revenue and economic participation by low-wage workers, Su said.

Language a barrier

Victims are often recent immigrants in low-paying jobs who speak little English. Women are more often victims than men, studies show. Workers in restaurants, retail, domestic service, the garment industry, along with day laborers, are particularly susceptible, state labor officials said. Victims often don’t know the law and are hesitant to report abuse.

“Language is a big barrier,” Li said.

There is also the economic pressure to survive.

Some employees who haven’t been paid for months continue to work, believing it’s the only chance to get their money, advocates said.

Eduardo Jaramillo, 35, said he was collecting recyclables in the Mission District before he got a job as a dishwasher and janitor at the Viva Portofino restaurant in San Leandro.

Jaramillo said he knew he wasn’t being paid overtime he was owed after working 12 hours some days, six or seven days a week, for $320 to $350 a week. But he continued working. “I needed my job,” he said.

He quit after about three months, filing a claim for $2,674 with the state labor commissioner, according to an attorney with the nonprofit La Raza Centro Legal. The case is continuing.

His old boss laughed at him, Jaramillo said. Later, he bumped into the man.

“He yelled at me that he’s going to have me deported,” Jaramillo said. A call to the owner of Viva Portofino was not returned.

Such threats are common, officials said, even though state labor laws apply, regardless of immigration status.

“Violations are happening at an increasing rate today in a climate of lax enforcement at the federal level and increasing boldness” by law-breaking employers, said Shaw San Liu, an organizer at the Chinese Progressive Association.

San Francisco officials are trying to tackle the problem. The city has an office dedicated to enforcing local labor laws – the only one of its type in the country. Legislation to tighten enforcement, pushed by community groups like the Chinese Progressive Association, is before the Board of Supervisors.

Last week, City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued Dick Lee Pastry, a Chinatown restaurant, for failing to pay more than $440,000 in wages to seven employees.

The workers were forced to work up to 14 hours a day, six days a week, for less than $4 an hour, according to the lawsuit. San Francisco’s minimum wage, which is higher than the state’s, is currently $9.92 an hour.

‘Corrupting’ marketplace

The owners, Peter Yu and Ada Chiu, are accused of creating fake schedules showing that staff only worked three hours a day.

“Robbing employees … doesn’t just hurt working families,” Herrera said. “It also hurts honest businesses and their employees by corrupting a competitive marketplace.”

In 2005, Herrera sued the owners of the defunct King Tin Restaurant, seeking $115,000 in back wages for cheated workers. The restaurant paid $85,000 to settle the case.

Herrera’s office also sed an order in 2006 for the Golden Dragon Restaurant to pay $1.1 million in back wages and penalties.

Since the city’s minimum wage law took effect in 2004, San Francisco officials have recovered nearly $4.4 million in back wages for workers, according to the city’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.

“We investigate every complaint we receive,” said Donna Levitt, who heads the office, which has a staff of 16 to enforce labor law, including about six handling minimum wage and paid sick leave violations.

Last year, they received complaints about 81 businesses across the city, she said.

Supervisors David Campos and Eric Mar are the chief sponsors of legislation before the board that would require employers to notify workers of a wage investigation, double the penalty for retaliating against workers to $1,000 and allow investigators to cite employers immediately for violations. Currently, the city has to give the employer notice of the violation and at least 10 days to correct the problem.

Pending amendments would also require the city to resolve labor claims or refer them to a hearing within six months, but Levitt said she doesn’t have the staff to meet that deadline.

“Many investigations are complicated,” she said. “They involve numerous job-site visits, requesting and getting an employer’s records, interviewing employees, interviewing the employer, conducting an audit.”

Li, who now volunteers to help workers in situations like hers, said an economic recovery can’t take hold until wage theft is addressed.

“If you don’t even have enough money to eat until you’re full,” she said, “how are you going to have any kind of money to spend?”

By the numbers

$9.92: current hourly minimum wage in San Francisco.

$4.36 million: Amount of stolen wages the city has recovered since 2004 from employers who failed to pay minimum wage.

$22 million: Amount state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement found was owed statewide to workers who had not been properly paid in 2009 – and those were only businesses that got caught.

$56.4 million: Projected amount stolen every week from workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

2,692: Number of employees who have had stolen wages returned to them since 2004 under San Francisco’s minimum wage law.

520: Number of San Francisco businesses that have been the subject of minimum wage complaints since 2004.

Sources: San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, National Employment Law Project

E-mail John Coté at jcote@sfchronicle.com.

Budget deficit forces day labor center to shut down

Budget deficit forces day labor center to shut down

Move drives workers to Home Depot’s curbs and parking lot.

By Veronica Rocha and Melanie Hicken; veronica.rocha@latimes.com, melanie.hicken@latimes.com
July 15, s 2011 | 6:09 p.m. | Source: BurbankLeader.com

 

Budget deficit forces day labor center to shut down

Day laborers crowd around a person, second from right, who was looking for two workers at the parking lot of the Home Depot at 5040 San Fernando Rd. in Glendale on Wednesday, July 13, 2011. (Raul Roa/Staff Photographer)

WEST GLENDALE — Catholic Charities officials have closed the day labor center across from the Home Depot in Glendale after the city, facing a multi-million budget deficit, cut its subsidy for the center.

Created at a time when Glendale banned soliciting from curbs — a law city officials agreed to relax after they were challenged in court — the center has in recent years struggled to attract skeptical workers, who prefer to seek work curbside, officials said.

“When our lawsuit was resolved, we relaxed our rules,” said City Councilman Ara Najarian. “There really was no incentive for people to use the day labor center.”

The City Council voted last month to eliminate the city’s $90,000 subsidy as members worked to fill a projected deficit of $18 million in the General Fund, which pays for basic public services.

In turn, the operators of the center, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, say they had no choice but to close up as of July 1. The center had guaranteed a minimum hourly wage of $8, restrooms, water, telephone access and a waiting room for workers.

“It was a relevant program. There was more organization. People could come needing some help and they could be picked up for work,” said Moed Khan, director of the San Fernando region for Catholic Charities. “I guess that’s pervasive these days, all of the cuts to government. It’s sad, but that’s the reality.”

The move could raise tensions between neighbors, laborers seeking work and Home Depot, which calls on Glendale police to enforce its no-trespassing clause for solicitors.

“We maintain our no-solicitation policy that prohibits solicitation of any kind on our property,” Home Depot spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher said in an email.

Since the July 1 closure, more workers have turned to the corner of San Fernando Road and Harvard Street to find employment — pushing other regulars into the Home Depot parking lot, where they run the risk of being kicked out or cited by police.

But some workers say it’s a risk they are willing to take for a couple hours of work.

“I used to work a lot more … but since construction dropped, there is less money,” said Juan Carlos Gonzalez as he sought work inside the parking lot Wednesday morning.

Most days, Gonzalez, a 38-year-old East Los Angeles resident, arrives at the Home Depot site about 8 a.m. and will work as much as he can before heading to his second job at a factory.

While the work often is daunting, Gonzalez, who spoke in Spanish, said he must press on to provide for his six children.

“It’s hard, but there is always a chance to get even a small job,” he said. “And because we are immigrants, it’s much more difficult to get work.

Glendale Police Sgt. John Gilkerson, who oversees police enforcement of the area, said that so far, there has been no change in crime activity or complaints since the day labor center closed.

“I am sorry to see it go because it serviced a certain percentage of workers,” he said.

Enforcement in the area regarding the workers was mostly driven by complaints from businesses and residents, Gilkerson added.

Local health personnel to offer annual clinic for low-income residents

By Melissa Evans, sick Staff Writer | Posted: 07/14/2011 05:42:10 PM PDT | Source: DailyBreeze.com

Health fair

When: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 23

Where: Harbor City Day Laborer site, 1301 N. Figueroa Place, Wilmington

Information: 310-534-6221

Local medical students, researchers and high school students are coming together again this summer to offer health services to low-income and underserved residents.

The Urban Health Fellowship includes two health fairs and then a July 26 summit where students will present findings from a research project.

Those involved will continue last year’s work, looking at health problems and access to health services among the day laborer population in the Harbor Area.

Students are surveying those who come for health screenings and other services at fairs this month, said Lisa Hean, one of the medical students involved.

“We want to find out where they go for health services, what problems they’re having, whether they’re scared for immigration issues,” she said.

The program, organized by the Harbor-UCLA Department of Family Medicine and Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, brings together high school and undergraduate students, medical students, medical residents and professional researchers who work together for six weeks.

The goal is to inspire young students from underserved areas to go into the medical field, and to encourage medical students to direct attention toward the disadvantaged in urban areas.

Last year’s group interviewed day laborers at work sites and health fairs, finding that the majority didn’t have any source of health care.

Many of those who came for services also did not have basic immunizations for tuberculosis and other highly infectious diseases, and many suffered respiratory problems and other health issues.The first health fair last weekend drew about 150 people. The next fair is July 23 at the Harbor City day laborer site.

Services include screening for anemia and diabetes, blood pressure checks, dental services, women’s and children’s health, immunizations and diet and nutrition information.

The program is supported by several groups, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, L.A. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Molina Medical Centers and the UCLA School of Dentistry.

The summit will be held at 12:30 in the Cragin Theater at Banning High School in Wilmington.

melissa.evans@dailybreeze.com

Worker Center Opening Planned for September

By Bonnie Hobbs | Thursday, July 14, 2011 | Source: ConnectionNewspapers.com

The Centreville Immigration Forum (CIF) was initially begun as a way to connect people and organizations that worked with Centreville’s immigrant population. It provided ESOL classes to teach English to the day laborers and eventually evolved into a group focused on creating a worker center for them.

The CIF is now interviewing potential staff members, raising money and making plans to open this facility — to be called Centreville Labor Resource Center (CLARC) — sometime in September.

“We’ve made excellent progress,” said CIF President Alice Foltz. “We’ve had good support from many volunteers in the community, plus new volunteers in the last couple months. And we believe that, when the center opens, we’ll be ready to operate it successfully.”

Currently, day laborers looking for jobs congregate outside the Centreville Square Shopping Center, on the outskirts of Centrewood Plaza and near the Centreville Regional Library. But store owners said their presence discouraged customers from coming to their businesses. And some moms were uncomfortable bringing their children to a library with men standing outside of it.

So Al Dwoskin, who owns the Centreville Square Shopping Center, volunteered to provide a space for a worker center if the CIF would run it. The facility will get the workers off the streets and provide an organized way for employers to connect with them.

Although CLARC will be within his ping center, it will be housed in a storefront in an area away from most customer traffic. It will also be large enough to accommodate all the laborers indoors. The resource center will be open Monday-Saturday, from 6 a.m.-noon. CIF volunteers will participate in the day-to-day operation, under the guidance of a full-time, professional director.

“Over a two-month period, we interviewed people for this position before our personnel committee, worker committee and the CIF Board of Directors,” said Foltz. “We had 19 excellent applications, but the person we selected was just outstanding.”

While declining at this point to reveal the potential director’s name, she said, “We decided to hire a person who we believe has great skills and capabilities, as well as experience with similar work in other areas. But we won’t formally offer the position until all the funds are raised.”

Foltz did say, however, that the director will be bilingual. Since the day laborers are Hispanic, it’s a requirement for all jobs at the center. She also stressed that the director-to-be has experience, not only with management, but also with an immigrant population and grant-writing.

Meanwhile, the CIF is also working on several other things in tandem to prepare for the center’s opening — deciding on support staff, figuring out how many workers it will serve and tending to the myriad details involved in running such an entity. And, of course, said Foltz, “We need to complete our fund-raising, in part, to make sure we can hire support staff.”

The CIF may hire one full-time or nearly full-time assistant director. But its Board of Directors and the center director together will make the decision on the support staff. Said Foltz: “Even though we haven’t advertised for these positions, we already have about 10 applications.”

She said the support staff will assist with the job matching between the employers and workers and will help schedule and oversee the volunteers. The CIF has already trained 35 volunteers and will hold another training session shortly before the center opens its doors.

This summer, two student volunteers — one from Pennsylvania and one from New Jersey — have interned with the CIF, doing counts of the day laborers. “We need to know how many folks are on the corner in the morning, how many employers pick them up and how many workers get jobs,” explained Foltz. “This information will help us plan well for when the center opens.”

Although the facility is not anticipated to be open on Sunday, Foltz said worker counts are also being made on Sundays, too, “because people in the community are concerned that they’d be there when the center would be closed.” The interns have also spent a few mornings each week talking with the workers about how CLARC will operate, telling them about its benefits and describing how the job distribution will work.

There’ll eventually be signs directing potential employers to the resource center. And the CIF has already given the workers flyers to hand to their employers, so they, too, will know about the new center.

The space, itself, is also being readied. Needed repairs are already underway and, said Foltz, “A good number of furnishings have been donated by a lot of generous folks.”

Regarding finances, she said the CIF needs about $45,000 more for salaries and benefits for the paid staff. “We’ve raised about $50,000 and have some more pledged,” said Foltz. “Our total, annual budget is $234,000, including the cost of the space, utilities — for which Dwoskin is paying, supplies, furnishings and salaries for the director and assistant director.

CIF members have visited other, similar centers and its directors to obtain guidance about how best to operate its own facility. It’s also prepared the forms that both workers and employers will fill out, as well as flyers and informational brochures for when the center debuts.

On June 21, CIF members considered the staff hiring-timeline and also discussed answers to tough questions they’ll receive once the center is up and running. These included operational, practical and philosophical questions that local residents may pose, such as, “Will it solve the problem of day laborers standing outside waiting for work?”

“We’re certainly convinced the center will benefit the entire community,” said Foltz. “It will provide a safe place for the workers to wait for employment, off the street, so it will reduce traffic congestion. And it will resolve folks’ concerns about [their own] safety and loitering.”

Many of the workers have wives and young children to support, and all they ask is fair pay for an honest day’s labor. But as things stand now, they have no recourse if they toil all day for an employer who then refuses to pay them. But once the new facility is operational, that should no longer be a problem. Said Foltz: “Because we’ll know who the employers who hire them are, the center will provide a system to make sure the workers are paid fairly.”

She said the workers will be inside the center and volunteers will greet the employers, possibly outside the entrance, as they arrive. In addition, the workers will receive training and classes there on English, taxes, job skills and financial management. Health screening for things such as blood pressure and diabetes may also be offered.

For more information about the center, to volunteer or to donate, go to centrevilleimmigrationforum.org. or call (this summer) 703-257-4111. Besides being excited about this project finally coming to fruition, Foltz hopes it will be accepted and welcomed by the residents.

“One of the community’s concerns is that the workers won’t use the center,” she said. “But that’s not true. They’re enthusiastic about it and see the benefits very clearly. If anyone has any worries, I’d definitely encourage people to find out firsthand what’s going on by volunteering.”

The public will be notified in advance of the opening and will also be invited to attend an open house there. “We’re not trying to solve the national immigration problem,” said Foltz. “This center has no government funding — so this is a private solution to a public problem. And in many ways, this is a model for the way many problems can be solved.”

Griego: Cultures melt into a stronger community

By Tina Griego | Denver Post Columnist | Source: DenverPost.com

The Aurora Human Rights Center occupies a small, two-story brick building on the corner of Dayton Street and 14th Avenue in what’s called Original Aurora, which is in north Aurora. It’s the kind of neighborhood where you can find a Somali market, an African hair-braiding and, in between, a great Mexican restaurantLa Cueva, if you’ve never been. It has its pawns, art galleries, a light-filled library, a small theater, apartments full of refugees, a corner claimed by day laborers.

It’s a changing neighborhood and has been for a while now. Some enjoy this. Some don’t. In either case, it holds a collection of communities that tend to be isolated from one another. It’s a kind of default isolation that’s generally a product of language or legal status or economic class.

What city and community leaders know is that isolated communities serve no one well. Not the people who live in them. Not the neighborhoods that surround them. Isolation breeds stagnation.

This, then, is the context for the Aurora Human Rights Center. The idea was sparked by the Denver Foundation’s Strengthening Neighborhoods program, with funding from the Buck Foundation, whose matriarch is Mims Buck. She has been described as a 101-year-old maverick, which makes her the kind of woman I want to meet.

The AHRC building is plain, drab, even. It doesn’t look like a bridge, but it is.

“We want to create the cross-fertilization of cultures, backgrounds, languages,” says Patrick Horvath, director of the Strengthening Neighborhood program. “It really is designed to be a melting pot.”

Five nonprofits are housed here: El Centro Humanitario, which is well- known for its work advocating the fair of day laborers; Rights for All People, which cultivates leadership among the Spanish- speaking immigrant community; the Lowry Family Center, which supports low-income families through a variety of services; and the Somali Community Center, where a small sign reads: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Strengthening Neighborhoods also has a satellite office run by Mario Flores, a longtime community organizer.

A day laborer can come here for workplace-safety training. An immigrant can sign up for citizenship classes. A Somali refugee can learn computer skills. Struggling mothers and fathers can take parenting classes.

Like other nonprofits in the city, the AHRC seeks to do more than serve clients. It wants to grow leaders. What’s different here, the experiment, if you will, is how to take five entities sharing one building and make them more than five entities sharing one building. That’s where the bridge comes in — the cross-fertilization, as Horvath called it. It can manifest itself in the simplest way. The Somali Community Center started a sewing group for its women. Soon enough, it was inviting Mexican women to join.

“We can say we want to know people outside our own communities, but how do we that? Where does it begin?” says Lisa Duran, the executive director of Rights for All People. “It’s not a small thing, and the Aurora Human Rights Center has that built into its vision.”

The AHRC held its open house a few weeks ago. It’s taken three years to get here and not without some controversy. El Centro Humanitario wanted to move the informal day-laborer gathering site to this building. It planned to establish a hiring center much as it has in Denver. The pushback from some city and neighborhood leaders has shelved that plan.

In some ways, the AHRC is still figuring out how to articulate the vision expressed by Mims Buck, who gets the final word today. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, she was asked for her wish. “Fewer wars and more tolerance for people of all backgrounds, faiths and races,” she said, and then added: “I think peace is something we are all wishing for, but it is not enough to wish or hope; we all need to strive towards it.”

Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.

Wage Theft: Business Interests Try To Scuttle New Worker Laws

Wage Theft: Business Interests Try To Scuttle New Worker Laws

By Davie Jamieson | HuffingtonPost.com

Wage Theft: Business Interests Try To Scuttle New Worker Laws Late last year, advocates for low-wage workers in Florida’s Palm Beach County made what they thought was a modest request of their county commissioners: pass a wage-theft ordinance that would make it easier for working people to reclaim unpaid wages from employers who stiff them.

But that seemingly simple request is now in limbo, as Florida’s business interests have begun campaigning strongly against such ordinances. Some local clergy in Palm Beach are wondering what’s so controversial about making sure working people are paid what’s owed them.

“I had a much higher opinion of our business community,” said Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church Deacon Peter Mazzella, who’s part of a coalition of religious leaders advocating for the law. “Being paid for one’s efforts — the salary that’s agreed upon for one’s work — is something very foundational to our whole economic system.”

In recent years, religious leaders and worker advocates have managed to raise national awareness about wage theft, which occurs when employers fail to pay the minimum wage or overtime, force employees to work off the clock or decline to pay workers altogether. A number of state and local governments have since moved to toughen their laws. New York State passed this past winter its Wage Theft Prevention Act, which increased penalties against unscrupulous employers and boosted the amount of back wages a worker can recoup. And Texas enacted a law this spring that makes wage theft a criminal act, empowering local authorities to arrest business owners who don’t pay their employees.

Such laws have had their detractors, but nowhere has the opposition seemed to be so strong as in Florida.

Last year the County of Miami-Dade passed one of the most progressive wage-theft laws in the country, establishing a municipal hearing process for allegations of unpaid wages. Workers owed at least $60 from their employer now have a right to make their case to an examiner through the county’s small-business development office.

To date, the program has fielded around 1,000 complaints, totaling more than $1 million in owed wages, and has so far recovered $130,000 for workers, according to statistics provided by the county. Many of those cases never went through the hearing process and were instead resolved quickly through mediation.

“Overall, it’s going great,” said Sheri McGriff, the program’s director. “With this law in place, people feel more empowered to come forward.”

Less thrilled with the law are some of the state’s business leaders. The Florida Retail Federation, a powerful statewide trade group, lobbied against the Miami-Dade ordinance, arguing that there were already systems in place to help workers recoup owed money. The group also believes businesses could wind up in “double jeopardy” with workers, being forced to pay back wages through the county, then again through the federal department of labor — a scenario that the law’s backers say is highly unlikely.

With the law now on the books, the retail federation is suing in state court, claiming the ordinance violates the state constitution. If successful, the lawsuit could nullify the Miami-Dade law and likely scuttle any attempts in Palm Beach to move forward with a similar ordinance.

The retail federation has also pushed a state bill that would preempt local ordinances like the one in Miami-Dade. Though that attempt failed, the bill will likely be brought forth again next session.

“You [already] have laws that protect against these violations,” said Samantha Hunter Padgett, deputy general counsel for the federation, which has officials from Walmart, Macy’s, CVS, Home Depot and Disney World on its board. “If this is truly a problem, then the issue is education and access.”

The federation may fear that the Miami-Dade ordinance could metastasize to other counties, creating red tape and making employers and their books more accountable to local governments. Indeed, the ordinance served as the basis for the proposal now stalled in Palm Beach.

But Jose Javier Rodriguez, the public-interest lawyer who drafted the Miami-Dade law, said employers have nothing to worry about — so long as they’re paying their employees properly.

“The burden of proof is on the employee,” Rodriguez said. “They have to prove they were employed and that they were owed money. It’s a basic contract: ‘I worked for you; you didn’t pay me.’ ”

The retail federation’s resistance to the law seems a bit puzzling to some given that retailers haven’t exactly been dragged in great numbers before hearing examiners in Miami-Dade. In fact, according to McGriff, the greatest numbers of wage-theft cases come out of industries other than retail — specifically construction, ity, and food-services. Many of the violations tend to happen under day-labor arrangements, an uncommon occurance in retail. She says the complaints are vetted early on to make sure they’re not frivolous or fraudulent.

“A lot of it is in industries that feel they can bring in folk and not be accountable,” said McGriff. “Say, a construction company may pick up some folk that are at a ping center, promise them work, work them for the week, and then not pay them. We’ve had that.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the people who’ve found recourse through the new law are undocumented workers. Fearing deportation, such workers are easily taken advantage of, and many of them would be reluctant to step forward and file a complaint with the federal labor department. The county, however, doesn’t care what a worker’s status is, McGriff said. “Our question is whether you were paid or not.”

Although Palm Beach’s county commissioners voted unanimously last year to support the drafting of a wage-theft ordinance, no such law will be coming soon. In the wake of the retail federation’s lawsuit and pressure from business groups, the commission has tabled the issue and likely won’t deal with it at least until after the new year.

Palm Beach Commissioner Shelley Vana said that the best route for workers who are owed wages may be through legal aid societies and their pro bono lawyers. In a best-case scenario, Vana said, “we can get everyone working together without an ordinance.”

Jeanette Smith, the director of the faith-based advocacy group South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, believes ordinances like the one on the table in Palm Beach are all the more important because Florida does not have a state labor department, which in other states is often the agency that investigates wage violations. Florida’s department was dismantled a decade ago.

The business community’s opposition, Smith said, doesn’t hold up on moral grounds.

“We all agree: Wage theft is bad; it hurts good businesses,” she said. “So what’s to know? Just pay your employees.”

Women Day Laborers Create Connect Democratic Workplaces

Women Day Laborers Create Connect Democratic Workplaces

Press Release – For Immediate Release
Contact: Ligia M. Guallpa, 646.479.4769

Building a Green and Grassroots Economy

Women Day Laborers Create Connect Democratic Workplaces

Brooklyn, NY – Today, July 8, women day laborers and founding members of Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning Cooperative will be joining for first time the 2011 Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy in Baltimore, Maryland to share strategies and learn new tools for organizing and building capacity of cooperative workplaces.

Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning is an unique project model led by women day laborers from Williamsburg and Jackson heights to help bridge the disconnect between two starkly different worlds: that of economically and culturally marginalized day laborers, and the world of New York City’s more affluent social groups with sophisticated needs for high-quality services. A primary function of this project is to both reduce the barriers and emphasize the unique strengths of day laborers, ultimately enabling them to gain a footing in new segments of the market and compete on a more level playing field.

This project has become an important and energizing strategy to address the formidable barriers that stand in the way of economic and social advancement for many women day laborers that stand in the street corner of Marcy and Division.

Every morning, approximately 20 to 40 women day laborers stand in the corner looking for work in factories, tailor s, stores, restaurants, and homes, and construction sites.They work for 2, 5, 10, 12 and even up to 14 hours straight a day. In a workplace without an air conditioner and a lunch break, these women- mostly Latino and Polish – load and unload goods from big trucks, clean and repair homes.

The need to earn couple of dollar has brought women from all over New York City to the same corner. “Many more people are coming here, but there is less work and less money,” said Yolanda who has been coming to La Parada” for more than 5 years.

Over the past five years, the number of women day laborers in the corner has grown rapidly. As result, bringing a new challenge to the organizing process in the corner. The lack of a physical space and the arrival of new women have prevented from maintaining stable rates, minimizing the competition and preventing labor and civil rights abuses.

“We all have had to become innovative at the time to organize during difficult times” said Luz Maria, a women day laborer that has become an active organizer in the corner. “The need to work and earn a dollar has become a immediate need among everyone in the corner,” she said.

Last year, Luz Maria and a group of women day laborers came together to form an unique worker owned green cleaning business, named as Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning, as a way to create green, healthy and sustainable cleaning jobs with dignified working conditions and a living wage.

“We needed to do something and we did it,” said Yesenia, another founding members of Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning. “I feel that we have found more opportunities as an cooperative. Our hope is to help more women from the corner to create their own work,” she said.

Today, women day laborers and founding members of Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning will be joining for first time the 2011 Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy in Baltimore, Maryland.

Day Laborer Organizing Project:

Day Laborer Organizing Project’s mission and central value-is to empower day laborers through organizing and education, and creation economic opportunities.

Contact:

Ligia M. Guallpa
dlopnyc@mail.com

Dante’s Slope

Dante’s Slope

By David Glenn Cox | Originally posted in: OpEdNews.com

Dante’s Slope

David Glenn Cox

I have been at loose ends now for two, clinic could it be going on three years? Without a phone or an address to call my own, I have access to these things but they aren’t mine. For the last six months I have been staying like Dick Cheney, in an undisclosed location. I wonder now, if I’ve become a gentleman of the road? I’ve been placing an ad in Craigslist offering to do day labor, I’ve built fences, stained decks, built brick retaining walls. No job application, credit check or testing needed. We talk, we meet, I do the job, I get paid and I go on my way.

I no longer have a sense of normality, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. None of my employers have tried to cheat me out of my time; no one has made the type of demands on me that conventional employers have made. No one has been disappointed in my work or made any complaints about either the caliber or quality. I could not have done this when I was living in Atlanta because in Atlanta, the economy there was prostrate. My ad offering labor for $12.00 an hour would have been ignored. It is only because I am in this enclave that there is work for me.

It is in a beautiful river valley, in a historic little town where the antique and boutique homes have been meticulously restored to an amazing degree. This is due to both the character of the people and the prosperity of the little town. It is both a bedroom community and tourist destination and as I jog through its tree lined streets I feel as if I am in Disney Land, it has a feeling of the unreal. It is all too perfect, my senses still can’t accept what my eyes see as normal because it’s not normal. It is an enclave and as I traveled out to meet another respondent to my ad I was reminded that it is an enclave. I saw in a little town just a few miles down the highway, the signs of which I was all too familiar with in Atlanta.

Empty buildings, for signs and for rent signs and then something which I saw almost two years ago in Atlanta. The people are selling off their toys, in the front lawns along the side of the highway are the littered remnants of their prosperity, boats, motorcycles and expensive riding lawnmowers . Like Dante’s vision of hell it re-awoke in me and reminded me not only how unreal my little enclave was but also how this economic plague continues on unabated. Seeing all the signs which I had lived with before was like the return of a recurring nightmare. Like a cloud of locusts or a tidal wave, of that feeling of knowing what was going to come next, but unable to do anything about it other than to just duck.

So I met with my customer, a divorced woman with three small children. Her husband’s business had failed, put out by Chinese labor and they had divorced. I could see the parallels in her story to my own story. She was down sizing, she had bought a foreclosed house out in the country and wanted to sell her house in town so as to live mortgage free. She had all the accoutrements of wealth around her but then, a few years ago so did I. There was a boat and a camper, but this house? This house was going to be a project and it contained all the signs of a Hail Mary pass. Of someone trying to hold on to what they have left, for me this looked like a perfect situation because my day labor comes and goes. Two days here, one day there and recently no days anywhere and cash is growing tight.

As I was returning to the enclave, there was a man at the highway exit begging. He held a handmade sign that read, “Lost my job, two kids, can’t pay my rent, family in crisis.” There was a time when I was a different person, when I was cynical and sanguine about the well being of others. Oh, I was introspective enough in the abstract, back when my lawn had a sprinkler system and my garage held a classic sports car. This is why I say that losing normality is not necessarily a bad thing.

My cynicism for government has never ebbed but my cynicism for people in trouble has all but evaporated. I understand intrinsically the mental machinations that it takes for a man to stand on a roadside and beg for money. The inability of a man to be able to support himself and his family after years of having doing so successfully. I have wondered if I could do it? In the abstract the cynic might say, “he’s conning you man!” But that was in the old America wasn’t it? In this America, who could doubt that an honest man had lost his job? In this America, who could doubt that he lost it through no fault of his own? In this America, who could doubt that he could not find another?

In this America, ask yourself just how hard on your self esteem it becomes to beg money from strangers on a roadside. This was no wino or crack head, this was a middle aged man sliding down Dante’s slope. As I look back over my own times on Dante’s slope I began to see all of the people that I have met and spent time with and how similar all of their stories are to each other. I gave the man $2.00 as we passed and was reminded of what Woody Guthrie had once said, “I ain’t never seen a poor man that wouldn’t share what he’s got and I never seen a rich man who wasn’t afraid someone would take something from him.”

I got the job and worked for a couple of hours and will begin work in earnest at the end of the week. The woman described me as “laid back” and she is the second person to describe me that way. If you had known me a few years ago you would laugh, Dave? Laid back? I had things to do back then, I had to cut the grass or wax my car. I had to preside as the President of my home owners association or I had to go to my job where I made my employer tens of thousands of dollars but he still treated me like I was stealing a paycheck. I had a form to sign that said that I had received my new company handbook and that I understood its covenants and conditions of employment.

That was my normality back in the day, back when I had things. I still had a house, cars, tools and lawn furniture but no real care or concern for my fellow man. “Tough break” or “That’s too bad” when really, all I meant was, tough break for you and too bad for you but I’ve still got mine! Oh, I cared in the abstract but not in the specific, I cared about the poor and the unemployed in a way which cannot ever be explained. On an emotional and intellectual level I cared, but those things I owned, they held me in their grip and my fear of losing them frightened me so into an emotional paralysis. I was tense all of the time and afraid all of the time. What if I lost my job? What if I lost all of these things? What if I lost my nice big house and my big screen TV with 200 channels?

Now I have lost all of those things and I haven’t been able to find stable employment for two, going on three years despite a good work record. Millions of you already understand what I’m saying, a gap in your work history? A poor credit score is seen as much the same light as having a criminal record. Recently, a friend of mine applied for an eight dollar an hour job at a convenience store, she was disqualified from this dream job by a credit card default. This is a very kind and sweet person but here, Equifax is allowed to do the hiring. Really? How are people ever supposed to recover? The bad debts and soured loans of the banks are covered and it’s business as usual, but for the American people it’s an economic debtor’s prison.

I’ve been through the first seven circles of hell and I’m not afraid anymore. I’m no longer intimidated by wealth or status or power. I still fear the police of course, because the less money you have the more likely you are to be jailed. That man begging for money would probably get more time than a drunk driver. You can go on TV and cry for the poor children in the name of Jebus but when you try to take care of your own children then it’s, “Book em Dano.” It makes you scratch your head in wonder. The ex-President of the United States creates phony wars of aggression and kills tens of thousands of innocents and the current President cancels the investigations into the criminal wrong doing.

Despite the obvious economic effects, both political parties plan to take a butcher’s knife to this country’s badly needed social programs. The party that feared death panels now wants to cut Grandma’s Medicaid and Mr. Hope and Change says, Ok, good idea.

I have been so changed by this experience, I have gone from a liberal Democrat to a revolutionary Sot. I think there is something cancerous and deadly wrong going on here. Beggars in the streets, millions made homeless, millions more made unemployed and the only answer from government is to cut even more still. To make more beggars, to make more homeless, to destabilize families with children, to shatter them and break them apart. To destroy the honor and self esteem of the honest and hard working by forcing them to beg in the streets.

I have come to understand that this is not a plague which is just affecting you or me. It is affecting us all at different levels, we are all at different rings of Dante’s Inferno and each day some rise and some fall. We are all in this torment together, young and old, white and black and brown. Christian, Muslim, Jew or Atheist, it no longer matters on which circle of hell you dwell because hell is hell. Each day more join us in their poverty and loss and each day the scales begin to tip as more as more Americans begin to understand that government is about protecting the people and not about protecting things. That the people of this country have value and that things do not, and when that becomes the consensus, the world will change, because the people will no longer be afraid of their government.

About the Author:

Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obss who it is that I am really.

Given a front row seat for the generation of the 1960’s I lived in Chicago in 1960. My father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge. His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux Klansman during a parade in the 1930’s. I never felt as if I was raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think, yes. That is a part of who I am.

We find ourselves today living in a world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more less life.