The Daily News: New law closes in on real wage scofflaws

An honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

Most of the time, it's an equation that serves both employer and employee just fine.

Unfortunately, there are some occasions where a dispute, a mistake or - rarely, an unscrupulous boss - leads to an employee who does not receive all of the pay that he or she has coming.

Thanks to some changes to the law approved during the 2010 legislative session, the state Department of Labor & Industries will soon have enhanced tools to go after the worst offenders, the so-called "willful violators" with a track record of such behavior.

Substitute House Bill 3145, sponsored by state Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, strengthens penalties and enforcement for wage payment complaints, including a doubling of the minimum penalty from $500 to $1,000.

The law takes effect June 10.

http://tdn.com/business/local/article_ae0da0e4-7022-11df-a148-001cc4c002e0.html

 

InTheseTimes: 'The Help' Gets Its Due: New York Passes Domestic Workers 'Bill of Rights'

New law brings protections most Americans enjoy to historically oppressed, invisible industry

In a city where everyone's out to make a buck, it's easy to run a sweatshop from the privacy of your own home. In fact, you'll find some of New York's most abused workers in the country not on a shop floor, but in a kitchen on the Upper West Side or a kid's bedroom in Chelsea... the hidden crevices of the urban economy that operate outside the law.

But well-off households across the state might soon get shaken up with the passage of a bill decades in the making. The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, just approved by the New York State Senate, gives nannies, housekeepers and other caregivers basic rights and safeguards against employer abuses.

The provisions, which could impact some 200,000 workers, include overtime pay, vacation days, medical leave, advance notice of termination, and one precious day off each week. The last step is to reconcile the bill with a somewhat weaker version already passed by the Assembly and send it on for Gov. David Paterson's signature.

CrooksandLiars: Bank of America Workers Sue Company Over Compulsory Unpaid Overtime

“This is always a favored tactic of the corporate elite: Keep employees so desperate and afraid, they'll work extra hours for free -- just so you can be chauffeured around Manhattan in a limo:

    NEW YORK: Workers for Bank of America Corp, one of the nation's largest employers, have sued the company for allegedly failing to pay overtime and other wages.

    The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, consolidates 12 lawsuits filed on behalf of employees in California, Florida, Kansas, Texas and Washington.

    It seeks nationwide class-action status on behalf of employees at retail branches and call centers over the last three years. The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in April directed that the cases be combined.

    According to the 44-page complaint, the largest U.S. bank by assets requires employees to work in excess of eight hours per day or 40 hours per week, yet fails to pay them both for overtime and for all straight time worked…..”

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/bank-america-workers-sue-company-over

 

Workers Interfaith Network Celebrates 8 years!

Read more here: http://winmemphis.blogspot.com/2010/06/it-takes-village-to-raise-social.html

 

 

Chicago Daily Herald: Duraco workers on quest to recover money after factory closing

A giant photocopied bounced check hanging on the wall at the Rolling Meadows' office of the Chicago Workers Collaborative serves as a frustrating reminder for Kim Cambra.

 

Cambra maintained the computer systems for Duraco Products Inc., a Streamwood factory that molded plastic gardening items like watering cans. The 500,000-square-foot factory closed after filing for bankruptcy in February. Cambra enjoyed her job, which she depended on to keep food on the table as a single mother of two. Her wages also helped her with mortgage payments on the family's home in Elmhurst.

 

Then last September, a $968.45 paycheck bounced, leaving her behind on her mortgage payments and without money for her children's Christmas gifts, she said.

 

But she says it wasn't the first time it happened. Cambra and…

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=384763

 

Chicago Daily Herald: Problems getting paid a common workplace problem, report says

A recent University of Illinois at Chicago study reports Chicago area workers lose $7.3 million per week in unpaid wages.

 

The study, "Unregulated Work in Chicago: The Breakdown of Workplace Protections in the Low-Wage Labor Market," also reports the Illinois Department of Labor receives about 10,000 unpaid wage claims each year.

 

A change in the Wage Payment and Collection Act, which sits on Gov. Quinn's desk waiting for action, defines low wages as cases where employers withhold $3,000 or less from their workers….

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=384764

 

Vanderbilt Law Review: Facilitating Wage Theft

How Courts Use Procedural Rules to Undermine Substantive Rights of Low-Wage Workers

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41244254/Facilitating-Wage-Theft-How-Courts-Use-Procedural-Rules-to-Undermine-Substantive-Rights-of-Low-Wage-Workers