NDLON in the News

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Robbed on the job: Advice on fighting wage theft | Marketplace.org

Every year millions of Americans are victims of what some call wage theft — a practice in which a company fails to compensate workers for their time, short-changes them on their benefits or intentionally misclassifies employees in order to save money. And even though all that is illegal, Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice and author of “Wage Theft in America,” says it’s surprisingly common in the U.S. “Minimum wage and overtime violations are two of the most common ways that wage theft occurs. Another way is payroll fraud, when employers intentionally call people independent contractors when they are really employees. Now if your boss — not you — declares you an independent contractor, you probably aren’t one. Then there is also tip stealing. About 10 percent of tipped workers actually don’t get their tips; their employers just don’t give it to them,” says Bobo. “This is really a crime wave in the nation. And it’s a crime wave that we don’t recognize.”

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After Sandy, immigrant groups keeping an eye out for abuse of laborers

Nearly a month after superstorm Sandy, ask immigrant labor rights advocacy groups say they’re unaware of any cases of day laborers being denied payment for work related to recovery efforts. “I’m not hearing anything right now that they’re not getting paid, pharm ” said Stuart Sydenstricker of Wind of the Spirit, an immigrant resource center in Morristown. “But it could take a few more weeks to come out.” Sydenstricker and Diana Mejia, also of Wind of the Spirit, document incidents of wage theft or injuries among immigrant laborers — many of whom speak little or no English — that otherwise might go unreported. Part of the problem with officially tracking such incidents is that the state does not and cannot make inquiries at work sites about workers’ immigration status. Consequently, it’s not possible to say whether undocumented laborers are performing work, according to Department of Labor spokesman Brian T. Murray. If a worker complained of being ripped off for wages by a contractor…

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5 immigration stories to watch in 2013 and beyond | 89.3 KPCC

Last year delivered some milestones in U.S. immigration history – including a historic demographic shift, fueled by immigration, as the children of nonwhite parents became the majority of babies born in this country. Also for the first time, more than 100,000 young people who arrived in the United States as minors are living out of the shadows after obtaining temporary legal status through deferred action, a new program that lets young undocumented immigrants who qualify live and work legally in the U.S. And in late June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Arizona v. United States, upholding the most contested provision of Arizona’s trendsetting SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law. But the issue of states’ rights in setting their own immigration policies remains in flux as new controversies arise.

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‘Reyes Magos’ recurren al gobernador Brown – laopinion.com

Los Reyes Magos llegaron ayer al Capitolio para visitar al gobernador Jerry Brown pero en lugar de regalarle oro, incienso y mirra como lo hicieron los hombres de oriente en Belén —según la tradición—, le entregaron una pluma gigante para que firme el Acta de Confianza, la iniciativa que podría frenar las deportaciones de inmigrantes sin delitos serios. “Queríamos estar aquí en el primer día de sesiones (legislativas) y motivar al gobernador a firmar el Acta de Confianza para dejarle saber que la comunidad está muy preocupada porque hemos visto muchas familias para quienes los días de fiesta fueron tristes debido a las deportaciones”, dijo la reverendo Debbie Lee, de la Coalición Interreligiosa por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes. En cuanto a la posibilidad de sensibilizar al gobernador con esta acción, Lee señaló: “Sabemos que tiene un corazón religioso y que esta temporada significa algo para él, así que estamos tratando de lograrlo con esto”.

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