It's in predicaments like these that members of one Nashville advocacy organisation lend a hand: fighting on behalf of vulnerable populations who are often taken advantage of by employers.
All Mariana López wanted was to get paid. After emigrating to the U.S. from Mexico, she got a job with a cleaning company in May 2010, and had just spent two weeks scrubbing offices. Now it was payday, but her check – which was supposed to total 300 dollars – was 200 dollars short.
Her employer claimed that it was an issue with the accountant, but López began to have her doubts. "I met with two other workers who said the same thing had happened to them," she says. "They worked for him, but he doesn't pay all of them the money that he says he's going to pay."
López waited another 15 days for the issue to be resolved. But her next paycheck was short by more than half. Her employer said he had to deduct taxes and contractor's insurance, since she was doing maintenance on a building. She promptly quit, and was told to wait two weeks for her final pay. When she was paid, it was short once again.
"He had a really tiny check for me…and he had a letter written that he wanted me to sign saying, 'I'm paying you in full,' basically where I would agree that he didn't owe me any more," she explains. "I knew that this was wrong so I didn't sign it, and I didn't take the check."
Together with her friend Florentina "Flor" López, who was refused three weeks' worth of pay when she was laid off by a food service provider at a local private academy, López went to the Tennessee Department of Labour. The department called to say that the employer would "give me my final check – about 500 dollars," she says. "What they owed me was 670 dollars."
"Then no one called me," López continues. "Every time I called I left messages – I couldn't talk to a person." The department finally sent her a letter refusing her case, leaving her uncertain what she should do next.
López and López are victims of wage theft, a national epidemic that affects thousands of low-wage workers in the Nashville area alone, says Jack Willey. He is the coordinator for the Workers' Dignity Project, a volunteer organisation that galvanises workers to recover stolen wages and provides free education on how they can protect themselves from wage theft.
"Our goal is to empower low-wage workers to defend their rights," Willey says. "Our goal is to build an organisation led by those directly affected…working together and building something that can counter some of the more widespread abuses."
Willey says that wage theft particularly affects "the most vulnerable sections of the working class" – namely immigrants and refugees, parolees and the homeless.
"They're people who employers think they can take advantage of," he explains. "They use physical intimidation, or threats of calling the police or calling immigration. Even if somebody has a green card, they don't want to get caught in an investigation."
Wage theft is especially rampant in the cleaning, restaurant, landscaping and construction industries, which are more prone to "cheating on the edges," says Willey. Since April 2010, Workers' Dignity has helped 30 workers reclaim 21,600 dollars in stolen wages, and has educated 180 more about their rights in free monthly labour workshops.
López and López turned to the organisation for help. Three other Workers' Dignity members accompanied Flor López to the office of the local food service provider to support her cause. "It was like night and day, between the first time I went alone and when I went with the group," she recalls. Faced with the threat of a lawsuit under the Fair Labour Standards Act, she says, "the manager's attitude changed completely."
According to the company, the information on file for López was inaccurate, which, when they could not get in touch with López, resulted in a delay in payment.
In the end, López was paid in full. "If we work, we have the right to be paid," she asserts. "If we are silent, this is going to continue."
Mariana López was forced to take a more direct, creative approach. Workers' Dignity found a labour lawyer who agreed to work both her case and a similar one pro bono, but her former employer's lawyer slowed the legal process. So López and fellow organisation members papered the city with flyers displaying the employer's photo, name, company and the exact amount he had stolen from his employees.
"We tried to put them strategically in his neighbourhood and other areas that we knew he went to…and where other Hispanics who worked for him would see them also," she explains.
It worked: within a week, her former employer had settled out of court to pay her double what he owed, in compliance with the Fair Labour Standards Act.
Dimas Rodríguez, also a Mexican immigrant, fell victim to wage theft while he was working as a concreter. His employer kept promising to meet with him and pay him for his work, but he never showed up and wouldn't return Rodríguez's phone calls. Without the employer's last name and address, Rodríguez didn't know how to find him.
Driving around town one day, Rodríguez spotted the employer's truck in an apartment complex. A neighbour identified the employer's apartment, and Rodríguez knocked on his door. When he explained that he was there to retrieve his wages, the employer responded, "You? When did you work with me? I don't even know you."
"That's what really drove me to say, 'I am going to get my money back. I am going to recover my wages' – because of the way he treated me," Rodríguez explains.
At Workers' Dignity, Rodríguez learned about his legal rights and the steps he could take to recover his wages. A demand letter and a visit by a delegation of workers received no response from the employer, nor did scheduled meetings to make payment and phone calls from Workers' Dignity representatives. Finally, Rodríguez filed a civil suit.
In one hour, he received two phone calls: one from the sheriff, confirming that the court papers had been delivered, and the other from his former employer, agreeing to meet with Rodríguez so that he could recover his stolen wages in full. He has since encountered wage theft at another job, and his case is still pending.
A recent survey of more than 4,000 low-wage workers by the National Employment Law Project found that two in three low-wage workers (a total of 68 percent) have experienced wage violations of some kind. Seventy-six percent of those polled were refused overtime pay, and 26 percent have been paid less than the minimum wage.
Wage theft can also include docking pay due to tacked-on "fees" or outright threats of violence and police investigation.
Misclassifying employees as "independent contractors" is one of the many methods of wage theft, says Willey. "By misclassifying someone as 'independent,' that employer doesn't pay taxes on the person. If that person gets injured, they're out of luck unless they sue him. Social security doesn't pay them anything."
Rodríguez says that fear of legal or financial repercussions and poor understanding of legal protections keep many workers from confronting wage theft. "So many cases are never even discovered or realized, because people keep it to themselves," he explains.
Mariana López, Flor López and Dimas Rodriguez are now active members of Workers' Dignity leadership, helping host labour workshops and providing case assistance to fellow workers. They also assist in more direct action, like the organisation's October protests against Vito Randazzo, Master Chef of Vito's Ristorante and Wine Bar.
According to Workers' Dignity Project, Randazzo owes 10,700 dollars in back wages to Bernardino Ruíz Morales, a 64-year-old employee who worked at Randazzo's previous restaurant, Caesar's Bistro, which closed in January 2011.
Randazzo, who took over the business from his father before it eventually shut down, says he informed Morales that he could not pay him as much as his father did in previous years at the restaurant, due in part to a spike in rent at the property.
"I want to work something out," says Randazzo. "I have no animosity towards him. I didn't want to take advantage of him."
In the meantime, Willey says that more protests will occur until the worker collects his wages.
"You're not alone because we are organising, we are unifying ourselves," Mariana López says. "With one person going against an employer, oftentimes they ignore you. But together as a group, we can win."
Although they have worked primarily with Latino immigrants, Willey emphasises that Workers' Dignity is open to all workers. "This does not just happen to immigrants. It affects Americans the exact same way," he says.
The group hopes to target industry-specific wage theft, while expanding its focus to include health and safety violations.
Willey identifies three main ways for people to protect themselves against wage theft. First, talk to coworkers. "Your best defence always is numbers," Willey asserts. "We've found that when there's a group of people, they're much more likely to win." Second, know your rights. And third, know your options.
In the end, the Workers' Dignity Project is about much more than recovering stolen wages, says Willey: it's about recovering someone's personal dignity and empowering workers to stand in solidarity.
"It's a form of degradation to not pay someone their money," Willey stresses. "(This is) about humanity. When we find our own humanity, that's when we can stand with others. Real change can happen when we're seeing our own humanity."
* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.
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