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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 2016)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | February 19, 2016 | PAGE 3 Oregon labor organizations have joined the Oregon Coalition to Stop Wage Theft, along with 30 lawmakers, because many other civic, religious and small workers face language barriers, business organizations. In 2015, the coalition helped fear retaliation from their em- draft a bill to crack down on ployers, and can’t afford legal wage theft, but it never got a representation. vote on the Senate floor, and In a way, it’s almost a surprise died in the Senate Rules Com- that so many employers remain mittee. Labor allies thought it law-abiding — given how poorly was a scandal that the Demo- staffed BOLI’s wage and hour c ratic-domi- enforcement nated Legisla- operation is: ture would punt Seven com- “We have to make it on a wage theft pliance spe- possible for workers to crackdown. The cialists en- enforce their own claim labor-backed force wage to wages. ” Fair Shot coali- and hour laws tion — which — Michael Dale, executive for all Oregon succeeded in director of the Northwest workers. Ac- Worker Justice Project passing sick cording to a leave legislation recent analy- in 2015 — de- sis by the clared wage Oregon Cen- theft would be one of its priori- ter for Public Policy, there are ties in 2016. more than 58,000 workers for Now it’s half way through the every full-time staff member in short 2016 legislative session. BOLI’s Wage and Hour Divi- Senate Democrats have an 18- sion. Those staff levels have got- 12 majority, but Senate Presi- ten much worse over the years: dent Peter Courtney (D-Salem) 20 years ago, the figure was has said (with a few exceptions) 28,500 workers for every staff he won’t allow votes on any bill member. Imagine if word got out that without bipartisan support. local law enforcement didn’t Wage theft isn’t one of the ex- have resources to investigate ceptions. To win the votes of and prosecute car thefts. Grand Republican legislators like state theft auto would soar. That’s Sen. Kim Thatcher, it takes busi- what’s happening in wage theft, ness support. To get it, Workforce Commit- worker advocates say. tee Chair Michael Dembrow And when corruption takes hold in industries, bad competi- tors drive out the good. Wage theft is most common in three industries: restaurants, farms, and construction. At Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 1, President Matt Eleazer and field rep Mike Titus say wage theft is becom- ing worse in their trade. Local 1 represents bricklayers, stone masons, tilesetters, and other workers in Oregon,Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. And the dirty little secret of the construction industry is that union representatives like Titus and Eleazer are spending more and more of their time policing their industries. “If we’re not doing it [polic- ing the industry], those guys are bidding against our contractors, and it’s not fair,” Eleazer says. “And we don’t catch a frac- tion of what’s going on,” Titus adds. Increasingly, worker advo- cates have been raising the alarm about wage theft — and calling for government to crack down. To push for stronger laws, the Oregon AFL-CIO and six other ...Wage theft From Page 1 the paychecks stopped coming, Sanderson kept working, and lived off savings. By the time he left, he estimates he was owed over $12,000 — not counting the overtime pay. Armando Robledo, a carpet installer from California, started in May and tells a similar story. He, at least, got $25 an hour, un- til the checks stopped coming. All three said RCI deducted money for income tax withhold- ing, but as of mid-February, none had received an IRS form W-2, which by law must be mailed out to employees no later than Jan. 31. RCI — based in Spanaway, Washington — doesn’t have a contractor’s license in Oregon. Calls by the Labor Press to the company went unreturned. The general contractor on the project is FDR Construction, a California company specializing in hotel remodels. FDR has done work for some of the biggest names in the industry. Reached by phone, FDR presi- dent Forrest Reardon said the unpaid wages aren’t his com- pany’s responsibility — Rear- don said RCI was paid every- thing it was owed. In fact, Reardon said RCI owes FDR tens of thousands of dollars for not finishing the job: A ballroom and ADA-compliant rooms were left undone. But Hilditch, Sanderson, and Robledo say FDR is also to blame: Its project manager promised they’d be paid if they stayed to finish the job, and that didn’t happen. What happened to the RCI workers is theft — wage theft. Wage theft is a catch-all term for the myriad ways workers are cheated of the wages they are owed. And it’s becoming more and more common around the country. At a hearing last month of the Oregon Senate Workforce Committee, attorney Laura Huizar of the National Employ- ment Law Project said wage theft has become widespread across the country and across in- dustries, costing workers bil- lions of dollars each year. In Oregon, the 1,100 workers a year who figure out how to file wage and hour complaints with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) are likely the tip of the iceberg, Huizar told (D-Portland) stripped out any part of the 2015 bill that busi- ness groups had objected to. What remained: Funding for three more BOLI positions (bringing it up to 10), making it a felony to cheat workers on public construction projects that are supposed to pay prevailing wage, and requiring employers to make payroll records avail- able on request to employees. But that still wasn’t enough to satisfy business groups. At a Jan. 16 hearing on the bill, As- sociated Oregon Industries vice president Betsy Earls said the bill “imposes new regulatory burdens and liabilities” and caused “consternation in the business lobby.” Specifically, giving workers the right to sue employers for not turning over records, “creates a significant private burden without clear public benefit,” Earls told com- mittee members. Dembrow kept the require- ment to keep and make avail- able records, but stripped out the language to make it enforceable. The bill was so watered down that the Oregon Coalition to Stop Wage Theft — the group that had called on the Legisla- ture to crack down on wage theft — declared a “neutral” stance on the bill, neither sup- porting nor opposing. Coalition point person Michael Dale says there’s nothing wrong with making prevailing wage viola- If you are hurt on a construction site and another contractor had control over the work that injured you, you may be able to sue that company for your injuries in addition to making your workers’ compensation claim. tions a felony. “The problem is that it’s go- ing to be very difficult to get a district attorney to prosecute these guys and put them away for five years,” Dale said. “In our experience, stealing from workers isn’t treated as impor- tant as other kinds of criminal activity.” That’s certainly been Hild- itch’s experience. If he had stolen a $43,000 forklift from the job site, that would be a Class B felony, and he’d face a prison sentence for first degree aggravated theft. After the Embassy Suites job ended in December, Hilditch, Sanderson, Robledo and two other RCI workers filed wage complaints with BOLI. An agency spokesperson confirmed BOLI is investigating the claims, which total $46,395.75. Dale said giving BOLI more resources is good, but isn’t go- ing to solve the problem. “You have to give workers the tools so either they themselves, or with a union or community organiza- tion supporting them, or with their lawyers, can enforce their right to recover wages on their own, without having to rely on a government agency…. We have to make it possible for workers to enforce their own claim to wages.” Dale says the coalition will push a stronger bill in the 2017 legislative session.
