A report released by Seton Hall University, the first new study since the recession, paints an ever more depressing portrait of the lives of day laborers. 96 percent of the day workers in Ironbound, Newark, have been victims of wage theft—88 percent said that they had not been paid for overtime as required by state and federal laws, 77 percent reported that their employers had paid them less than originally promised, and 62 percent had experienced at least once instance where they were not paid at all. Furthermore, 80 percent had not been provided with safety equipment, 27 percent had been assaulted by their employer, and 20 percent had been injured on the job.
Day laborers are the most economically vulnerable workers, easily exploited and hesitant to seek recourse. Many are undocumented immigrants, willing to resort to the most laborious and low-paying jobs, worried about deportation, unaware of their legal rights, and in effect, impelled to put up with flagrant workplace abuses. Furthermore, with the economic recession, the demand for such workers has fallen and the room for outright exploitation has increased. Though day laborers are endowed with the same legal protections granted to all workers according to New Jersey law, the Ironbound workers have been subject to a larger rate of wage violations than what even national statistics have …
http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2010/07/the_most_vulnerable_and_the_mo.html
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