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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 2016)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | April 1 , 2016 | PAGE 11 THE FIGHT AGAINST WAGE THEFT Oregon’s ‘incredible’ crackdown on wage theft — Book of Jeremiah, 22:13 King James Version By Don McIntosh Associate Editor In the short session that ended March 3, the Oregon Legisla- ture passed a law that will make wage thieves tremble. When employers fail to pay minimum wage or overtime, workers will be able to sue for triple damages. Construction contractors that cheat on pre- vailing wage laws will be barred from bidding on public works projects for 20 years. Lawmakers — alarmed by ex- pert testimony that the problem is growing — also quadrupled the wage-and-hour enforce- ment budget of the state Bu- reau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), and even approved a budget note asking the state at- torney general to create a spe- cial unit devoted to prosecuting wage thieves. April fools! Actually, Ore- gon lawmakers did none of those things. But they could one day, if they ever wake up to the scale of the problem. The triple damages proposal is part of a real piece of legis- lation introduced March 16 by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D- Wash.) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) Known as the “Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recov- ery Act,” the bill would also: require employers to provide regular pay stubs; give workers the right to inspect their em- ployer’s payroll records for them; and allow class action suits in cases where employers systematically defraud work- ers. The Senate bill has 10 cosponsors, including Demo- crats Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachu- setts, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The House version has 32 cosponsors. But as long as Republicans remain in New rule for ces union- busters into the daylight Effective July 1, the U.S. De- partment of Labor (DOL) is closing a legal loophole that has allowed union-busters to operate mostly in the dark for the last 54 years. The loophole has to do with the Labor-Man- agement Reporting and Dis- closure Act (LMRDA), which Congress passed in 1959. Be- cause of the LMRDA, you can go to the DOL web site and get detailed information about union finances and salaries. The law was supposed to apply to labor relations consultants too: Any time an employer hires a labor relations consult- ant to persuade employees not to unionize, both the employer and consultant are supposed to report key details of their con- tract, including the amounts paid. But in 1962, the DOL inter- preted the law in a way that created a giant loophole: If consultants don’t have direct contact with workers, they did- n’t have to report. Ever since then, most union-busting con- sultants have spent their time training managers and supervi- sors to deliver their scripted anti-union messages, while themselves remaining “behind the curtain” to avoid disclo- sure. Getting rid of that loophole was one of the first things labor union leaders asked President Barack Obama to do, even be- fore he was sworn into office. He certainly took his time: The DOL didn’t even publish the proposed rule change until 2011, and it’s been in a bureau- cratic rabbit hole most of the time since then. But on March 23, the DOL announced it’s fi- nalizing the rule. Business groups have complained loudly about the change. Unions have applauded it. DOL predicts it will receive disclosures from about 3,414 employers and 2,601 advisers each year. Expect to read more about union-busters in these pages in the months to come. charge of Congress, the bill is considered to have zero chance of passage. In Oregon, the Democrats are in charge. They took at least a bite at the problem this year, cobbling together some of the least controversial parts of a bill that failed to win passage last year. SB 1587 passed 21-7 in the Senate, and the Oregon House had only one “no” vote (Tualatin Republican Julie Par- rish). SB 1587 is still awaiting Gov. Kate Brown’s signature to become law. Like Patty Mur- ray’s bill in Congress, SB 1587 requires employers to provide pay stubs to workers — spell- ing out pay rates and hours worked, and itemizing payroll deductions. It also requires em- ployers to keep payroll records for three years. It gives BOLI three more wage and hour in- vestigators (bringing the total to 10, to enforce the law for all Oregon workers.) And it makes it a Class C felony — punish- able by up to five years in prison, a $125,000 fine, or both — for a contractor to know- ingly violate the state’s prevail- ing wage law. [Look to future issues of the Northwest Labor Press for news about those prosecutions.] But no one thinks those measures will stamp out the problem of wage theft. State Sen. Michael Dem- brow (D-Portland) — SB 1587’s sponsor — said law- makers will have to become much more aware of the prob- lem before significant action is taken. That action may start in the House Business and Labor Committee, chaired by State Rep. Paul Holvey. Holvey knows about wage theft first- hand: He’s a Eugene-area union rep for the United Broth- erhood of Carpenters, and con- struction is one of the indus- tries where wage theft is most common. “[BOLI] is underfunded,” Holvey said, “and doesn’t have the resources they need to do a thorough job of compliance.” Holvey said he expects to try again to get a more significant bill passed in 2017, and will hold a hearing on the issue in May or September of 2016. Has WAGE THEFT happened to you? Have you or someone you know been cheated out of wages or overtime, not given meal and rest breaks, told to work be- fore or after punching out, or told by an employer that you’re an “indepen- dent contractor” when that was news to you? If so, you may be a victim of wage theft. If it took place in Oregon, you should call the Bureau of Labor and Industries at 971-673- 0761 — but only if it hap- pened in the last year. Ei- ther way, let us know too — the Northwest Labor Press is looking for exam- ples. Call us at 503-288- 3311. 40,000 Chicago teachers to strike for a day CHICAGO (PAI)—Facing a pension cut and unpaid fur- loughs, members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Ameri- can Federation of Teachers Lo- cal 1, voted March 24 to go out on a one-day strike on April 1. Plans are for a mass protest in the city’s Loop to demand the school administration and Mayor Rahm Emanuel keep their pension promises and ne- gotiate a new contract. Emanuel and the city schools’ CEO say the money is- n’t there, and that the system faces a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. “Now, as in the past, we see the powerful and wealthy under- cut public education, neglect our pension fund, restrict bargaining rights and pass tax breaks for corporations and the rich,” union President Karen Lewis wrote. “We are confident in our ability to stand up to them be- cause we remain rooted in our schools and our communities, and we remain strong in our sol- idarity with one another.” Lewis told the 40,000 teach- ers that after a month of threats, Photo by People’s World “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's serv- ice without wages, and giveth him not for his work.” Chicago teachers, on strike in 2012. CPS backed down from its plan to cut teacher pay by 7 per- cent on April 1. But it plans to cut a pension contribution at the conclusion of fact-finding in May, and it furloughed every- one on March 25. Other unions, activists and workers citywide will join the teachers in the streets, Lewis said, just as they did when CTU struck for eight days in 2012. The teachers will also present their plans for funding the school district, such as ending high-interest “toxic” borrowing from Wall Street and rechannel- ing a corporate subsidy called tax increment financing (TIF). TIFs alone, Lewis said, raise enough funds to reverse the board’s cuts. The teachers will also call for a fair state-level tax on the rich.
