New Report Reveals Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in U.S. Cities

A new report, that was just released, surveyed 4,387 workers in low wage industries in the three largest U.S. cities. The researchers of the survey state that it was done in such a way where "innovative, rigorous methodology was used to reach vulnerable workers who are often missed in standard surveys, such as unauthorized immigrants and those paid in cash." The report examined the right to be paid at least the minimum wage, the right to be paid for overtime hours, the right to take meal breaks, access to workers’ compensation when injured and the right to advocate for better working conditions. The report found that many employment and labor laws are regularly and systematically violated and that the "framework of worker protections that was established over the past 75 years is not working."

Some minimum wage violations that were found were:

• 26 percent of workers in the sample were paid less than the legally required minimum wage in the previous work week.
• 60 percent of workers were underpaid by more than $1 per hour.

Overtime violations:

• Over a quarter of respondents worked more than 40 hours during the previous week. Of these, 76 percent were not paid the legally required overtime rate.
• The average worker with a violation had put in 11 hours of overtime- hours that were either underpaid or not paid at all.

Illegal employer retaliation:

• One in five workers in the sample reported they had made a complaint to their employer or attempted to form a union in the last year. Of those, 43 percent experienced one or more forms of illegal retaliation from their employer or supervisor. Examples were: Employer fired or suspended worker, threatened to call immigration authorities, or threatened to cut workers' hours or pay.

Sources:

To view the whole report click on URL: Bernahardt, A., R. Milkman, N. Theodore, D. Heckathorn, M. Auer, J. DeFilippis, A. Gonzalez, V. Narro, J. Perelshteyn, D. Polson, and M. Spiller. Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America's Cities. Rep. 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 8 Sept. 2009.http://nelp.3cdn.net/1797b93dd1ccdf9e7d_sdm6bc50n.pdf