Vol. 73/No. 36      September 21, 2009

The report, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,” is based on interviews with nearly 4,400 workers with median incomes of $8.02 per hour in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The report said at least two-thirds experienced pay violations the previous week. The average worker lost $51 out of average weekly earnings of $339. This included employers not paying the minimum wage, unpaid overtime, and “off-the-clock” work.

The study is “the most comprehensive examination of wage-law violations in a decade,” according to the New York Times. It was initiated by members of the Center for Urban Economic Development in Chicago, National Employment Law Project in New York, and the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment in Los Angeles.

Based on interviews conducted from January through August 2008, the report says that wages of lower paid workers have probably “deteriorated further” over the past year with rising unemployment and the deepening of the economic crisis.

According to the study, 39 percent of those surveyed were undocumented workers, 31 percent immigrants with papers, and 30 percent born in the United States.

More than a quarter of those interviewed received less than the minimum wage the previous week; 60 percent were underpaid by more than $1 per hour. In addition, 76 percent of those who worked more than 40 hours were not paid legally required overtime rates.

Eighty-nine percent of in-home child care workers earned less than their state’s minimum wage, as did more than 40 percent of all sewing and garment workers surveyed.

For those getting tips, 30 percent were not paid the tipped worker minimum wage, which in Illinois and New York is lower than the state minimum wage. Employers stole tips from 12 percent of these workers.

In nearly half the cases where workers complained to the employers about these wage violations or responded by fighting to form a union, the bosses “fired or suspended these workers, threatened to call immigration authorities, or threatened to cut workers’ hours or pay,” the report said.

Only 6 percent of workers seriously injured on the job were able to get workers compensation insurance to pay their medical expenses. Bosses required 43 percent of these employees to work despite their injury, the report noted.
 
 
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