Are Worker Misclassification and Wage Theft Laws the Solution? [1]
With the advent of the Arizona Immigration law, SB 1070, the filing of Amicus Briefs by 27 states, and the challenge to the Arizona law, many of us are not watching the Wage Theft and Employee Misclassification movement underway in a large number of states.
This movement involves religious organizations like Interfaith Worker Justice [14] and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos [15]. It has spread through Florida, New York, Chicago, Iowa, New Jersey, New Mexico and New Hampshire. Most of the laws focus on the misclassification of workers as temporary or independent contractors where the result on the workers can be devastating and substantial. The laws impose stiff penalties on employers in a broad range of industries who have a history of wage theft through misclassification.
“If we ever hope to bring immigrant workers out of the shadows in which they’ve been laboring,” says Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, “we need to forcefully oppose anti-immigrant legislation and stand up for both comprehensive immigration reform and vigorous enforcement of the nation’s labor laws.” Bobo was quoted in a recent article in the Progressive States Network article [16] that says that the passage of the Arizona Immigration law has created an environment where even more employers are engaging in wage theft.
Bobo’s organization is leading the way for the wage theft movement. It is becoming clearer that the passage of wage theft and worker misclassification laws will change the environment for workers only if the Labor Department enforces the Labor laws.
Once again it appears that the states and cities are having to step in to correct conditions of long standing wage theft and worker misclassification where the federal agencies have not enforced existing laws to their fullest. Several Congress members are working on a Federal misclassification law that will create on a national basis what the cities and states are doing right now.
If the national law is enacted, will it solve the problem?