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.