Street Roots • Oct. 28-Nov. 3, 2016
News
Page 7
WORKERS, from page 5
nonprofit for a few months before getting
hired at Voz in Portland, where he’s been
working for about a year.
Salgado pointed out that if a worker steals
from their boss, they are likely to get the
book thrown at them, possibly facing arrest
and criminal prosecution. But flip it around,
and employers in Oregon can steal
thousands of dollars from a single employee
in the form of unpaid wages and never see
the inside of a courtroom or jail cell.
While BOLT has referred cases to district
attorneys for prosecution, it’s rare. BOLI
representatives said the agency has referred
a restaurant owner and wreath maker for
criminal prosecution but were unable to
provide Street Roots with any examples of
construction contractors or companies that
had been criminally prosecuted.
“Maybe if there was more enforcement
and tougher penalties, maybe this wouldn’t
happen,” Salgado said.
Kate Suisman, a volunteer attorney at
Voz’s twice-weekly wage theft clinic and
recent hire at Northwest Workers Justice
Project, said it’s common that people who
come to her with wage theft issues have
also experienced other forms of
mistreatment.
“Some of it’s quite racist,” she said,
explaining workers have reported to her
that employers have told them that because
they are immigrants, they don’t have any
rights and can’t do anything about not
getting paid.
Among the many wage claim cases she’s
helped workers submit, Suisman said she’s
rarely seen BOLI issue any penalty to
employers for failing to pay their workers, or
for failing to pay them on time.
“Wage theft pays for employers,” she said.
We asked BOLI Commissioner Brad
Avakian why his agency doesn’t go after
more employers with fines and criminal
charges.
“The most important thing is to make
sure that the workers get paid because the
workers and their families need the money,”
said Avakian, a candidate for Oregon
secretary of state. “There are times,
especially when you’re dealing with a small
business, that we want to make sure that
the levying of the fine doesn’t break the
business to the point where we can’t collect
the wages.”
When it comes to criminal charges, he
said, “we have occasionally passed on
information to district attorneys - I don’t
know that there’s been an appetite in order
to criminally prosecute.”
Adam Gibbs, spokesman for the
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
Office, said he asked around the property
crime unit and prosecutors could only think
of one time during the past 10 years that a
wage claim case had been referred to them
from BOLI. No one could remember the
details of the case.
Gibbs said while the the DA’s office takes
theft and fraud referrals from quite a few
state agencies, “they’re not giving them to
us, so we don’t see them.”
He said that after Street Roots inquired
about wage theft cases, someone from his
office reached out to BOLI “to reaffirm that
we will be happy to take and review any case
referred.”
But as Dale at Northwest Workers Justice
Project points out, it’s hard to collect stolen
wages from an employer who’s behind bars.
would work in an at-will state.
ENDING WAGE THEFT
“It’s a very high burden for employees that
have been treated unfairly to meet so I
think that its a fair discussion to have,”
Avakian said. “There have been proposals
like thaf made before, they have failed at
the Legislature. It would be a very difficult
thing to do with the law.”
A coalition of nearly 40 organizations ted
by the Northwest Workers Justice Project
has been working since the 2013
legislative session to pass new laws to
combat wage theft and retaliation in
Segon.
Northwest Workers Justice Project
Executive Director Michael Dale explained
the Coalition to Step Wage Theft was
responsible for legislation during the 2016
26 percent penalty on wage thieves: e
coalition would add a non-negotiable 20
percent penalty to the total amount erf
wages owed to workers in wage claims
handled by BOLI.
Because nonprofits theft advocate for
immigrants have stepped up to teach
workers about their rights and to help
them file wage complaints with BOU and
foe Department of Labor, this 20 percent
He believed the teeth were taken out erf
the bill, however, when provisions that
would have allowed for enforcement were
gmoved.
penalty would go into a fund that would be
distributed to frese community groups, by
¡
BOLL in the form of grants.
“Basically what the Legislature did was
pass what the business lobby wanted on
Bis issue,” he said.
Redefining independent contractors,
lien laws and attorney fee obligations:
It’s expected the business lobby will
strongly oppose the coasts 2017 bills
»weft.
Combating retaliation against workers
who make claims:
This bill would make it easier for an
employee to win a retaliation case
because ft shifts foe burden of proof to the
employer If an employer fires an
employee within a certain period of time
after the employee filed a wage claim, the
law would assume that foe firing was in
retaliation, and the employer would have
to prove otherwise. That period of time is
still being determined but will likely fall in
the6G-to 90-day range.
This tactic is similar to a recommendation
the Environmental Justice Task Force has
considered making to foe governor in light
of abuses of immigrant farm and forestry
jorkers.
But Oregon is an at-will state, meaning an
employer can fire an employee for any
reason, or for no reason at
But this bill would also require an |
.
written reason for their termination upon
Tins bill covers a lot of ground. For one, it
would shift foe property thata lien is
placed on in a wage theft claim from the
property that was being worked on -
which typically does not belong to the
employer who owes workers money - to
the property of the guilty party.
ft would also change the law so that
employees who sue employers and lose ♦
are no longer required to pay their
employer’s attorney fees
But the most notable provision of this bill
is foat it would redefine what it means to
be an independent contractor.
“I’ve had cases here where everyone on a
construction site was an independent
contractor,” Date said. “Of course the
effect of being an independent contractor
is you don’t have wage protections, you
don’t have minimum wage, you don’t have
time and a half, deductions from your pay
protected. You don’t get workers’
comp, you’re not paying into the Social
Security system, you don’t have,
therefore, disability coverage, and on and
on ft goes You can’t even unionize,
because since you’re not an employee,
you’d be price fixing and violating the anti
request, and therefore preventthe
employer from being able to change his or.
her story at a later date.
trust laws.”
We asked Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and
Industry commissioner, Brad Ávakfon, if
an employee of the company, which could
have far-reading implications in foe
he thought shifting the burden bf proof
emerging gig economy.
A Senate bill passed in the 2016
legislative session made it a Class C felony
for employers to knowingly violate the
prevailing-wage law, however it’s yet to be
seen whether it will send more employers to
criminal court
Wage theft is perpetuated by a Catch 22.
Punish employers for stealing from their
workers, and the workers might never get
paid. But do nothing to punish employers,
and there is no deterrent to keep them from
stealing from their workers.
Further exacerbating the problem,
undocumented workers who fear the loss of
WORKER EXPLOITATION
Oregon’s immigrant forestry workers
have little recourse to pervasive
exploitation and labor violations. Read
Street Roots' investigative series,
Timber's Fallen, at news.streetroots.
org/timbersfallen
Another bill being brought forth by foe
short session that now requires employers
to provide workers with detail«! pay stubs
and optes of payroll records upon
■quest.
employer to provide foe employee with
RELATED COVERAGE:
He said this bill would define anyone who
is conducting foe work of a company as
their job often don’t complain when they get
shorted on their paycheck, and BOLI and
U.S. Labor Department investigations are
largely complaint driven.
“I think BOLI is put in an impossible
situation where they really don’t have the
resources they need,” Dale said.
Carpenter union representatives agreed.
“The problem is there’s no enforcement,”
Sheckler said. “The union has to do the
enforcement of workers that are being
ripped off.”
BOLI has only 11 wage and hour
investigators for the entire state. Three of
the investigators are new additions, added to
conduct proactive investigations into
problem industries, however they are
currently focused on seafood processing
compliance.
Avakian was hesitant to admit his agency
was short on resources. When asked about
cuts, he said, “We are able to do very
efficient, very quick and thorough
investigations in the construction industry.”
But Vbz and other immigrants rights
advocacy groups have stepped up,
conducting outreach to vulnerable workers,
teaching them about their rights and
helping them file wage complaints with
agencies such as BOLI and the U.S.
Department of Labor.
n Sept. 23, Sanchez shared Becerra’s
experience of getting fired for attending
a union meeting with a room overflowing
with Latino workers at the carpenters union
headquarters on East Burnside Street.
It was the largest turnout since they
began their outreach efforts, with about 45
men in attendance, many for the first time.
Many, like Becerra, had bosses who
wouldn’t approve if they knew they were
engaging with the union.
Before sharing Becerra’s story, Sanchez
asked the room, in Spanish, how many had
ever worked for “Timber Tech.” Nine raised
their hands.
He told them that Becerra had a good job
now, with benefits and fair pay - a job the
union helped him secure after he was fired.
A handful of local contractors that had
subcontracted wood framing are now
coming to the union to find workers they
hire directly instead. Taking away this
business is hurting non-union
subcontractors, Sheckler said.
“They already have these guys working for
them under a sub (contractor), and now we
can say to these contractors, ‘Hey, we got
guys if you want to self-perform it, but you’re
going to have to pay the union wage.’”
A representative from Andersen
Construction was at the September meeting
to do just that. He told the men around the
table that he had good-paying jobs waiting
for them.
Sanchez told the room full of laborers
that the union would teach them how to fill
out applications and have their back if they
get ripped off. He told them that they work
hard and they deserve to be paid. As men
walked out of the conference room at the
meeting’s end, feelings of optimism among
them seemed contagious.
“This is our work. This is what we do,”
Sanchez said. “Back in the day, I wish
somebody would have helped me. I didn’t
know better; I was not educated - I just
didn’t have the information, and I allowed
my employer to take food out of my kids’
mouths. That’s not right, and that’s why I
take it so personally.”
O
emily@streetroots. org