Labor Day thanks to American workers

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Labor Day, a day often thought of as the last hurrah for summer and last chance for a cook out. This Labor Day, while spending the day at the pool or hanging out barbecuing with friends, please take a moment to think about the struggles of working Americans and hopefully thank one too.

In some cases, these workers are the quiet heroes of our lives: police officers, firefighters, EMTs, nurses, & teachers; and in other cases they’re the people who take care of our loved ones: nurses, home care workers, and domestic workers. They build our cars, bridges, and buildings.

They should be honored, but this year they have been under attack in nearly all parts of the country. No place was it more apparent than in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin State Legislature demonized public workers – teachers, firefighters and police officers – as “thugs”, “failing” and “under-performing” and looked to strip public servants of their hard-earned benefits. On August 5 when a gunman opened fire at a Sikh temple, police officer Lt. Brian Murphy attempted to stop the carnage and when additional help arrived he waved off medical assistance and insisted that they take care of the wounded first. He’s a union member.

Thankfully, the year hasn’t been all bad, and there have been some bright spots: after looking to New York’s Domestic Workers Bill of Rights the California legislature is currently looking to pass a similar bill, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed a new rule to provide Fair Labor Standards Act protections to over 2 million home care workers and Senator Tom Harkin (IA) and Congressman George Miller (CA-7) introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2012 that would raise the federal minimum wage and the federal tipped minimum wage.

As a consumer, you can support the actions of thousands of hardworking Americans by buying American-made and union-made products. Check out the list below and try to serve some union-made treats this Labor Day.

Snacks	Hot dogs	Beers
Doritos	Oscar Meyer	Anheuser Busch
Lays	Nathan’s	Budweiser
Crunch & Munch	Hebrew National	Busch
Corn Nuts	Ball Park	Icehouse
Oreos	Hormel	Labatt’s Blue
Ghirardelli Chocolate		Leinenkugel’s
Kraft snack products	Sausages & Brats	Michelob
Wise snacks	Johnsonville	Miller
Snyder of Berlin	Armour	Molson
Planter’s Nuts	Eckrich	Pabst
Condiments	Poultry	Soft drinks
Heinz ketchup	Butterball	Coke products
French’s mustard	Healthy Choice
Gulden’s mustard	Hormel	Juices
Land O’Lakes butter	Tyson	Welch’s
Open Pitt BBQ sauces		Minute Maid
Pace salsa & picante sauce
Vlasic pickles

SLAP! Did you feel it?

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

If you are one of the millions of American working women, did you feel a slap in the face earlier this week? The Senate voted yesterday to defeat the pay equity bill designed to fix the wage gap faced by most women who still make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and the outcome of the vote wasn’t pretty.

In an average year, the wage gap means a $10,784 loss for women, and the numbers for minority women are worse. But yesterday, the Senate had the chance to change that when they voted on the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Act went before the entire Senate, and the vote went straight along party lines – 52 in favor of the Act and 47 against the Act. Fifty Democrats, plus the two Independents, voted in favor of the Act, while 47 Republicans voted against the Act with one Republican choosing to abstain from the vote (Sen. Mark Kirk, Illinois)

Almost 50 years since the Equal Pay Act became law (1963) and made discrimination in the workplace illegal, why stop legislation designed to protect half of America’s workforce? Senate Republicans argued that the Act could adversely affect businesses if employees attempt to file pay-related lawsuits.

What about these women’s families? According to a Congressional report published and prepared by the Majority Staff of the Joint Economic Committee, in 2009, 25 percent of all U.S. families with children – 9.8 million families – are female-headed households. And according to the same report, by 2008, married working women’s income make up about 36 percent of the total family income. All of these millions of families are affected by the pay gap.

An extra $10,784 a year is not just a matter of injustice and inequality but also a matter of economic stability. According to the National Women’s Law Center, an additional $10,784 per year is enough to:

• Pay the median cost of rent and utilities for a year with over $1,000 to spare or the median mortgage payment and utilities for over ten months
• Feed a household of four for a year and five months with more than $300 to spare
• Pay a year and a half of childcare cost for a four-year-old with over $100 to spare
• Pay for two and a half years of family health insurance premiums in an employer-sponsored health insurance program with over $1,400 to spare

What could you have done with an extra $10,784 a year?

Consumers willing to sacrifice for worker welfare

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Consumers care. That simple idea can terrify businesses and start the waves of change for workers across the nation and around the world.  It can topple oppressive industries and pull back the curtain to show the ugly side of life in factories, restaurants, and stores.

With the National Consumers League’s newly commissioned survey, conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation, consumers have once again shown that they feel strongly (87 percent) about the products in their lives and they do not want products to be manufactured in unfair, overly harsh, or dangerous working conditions – and they are willing to make some sacrifices for it.

Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of responders agreed that they would be “willing to wait longer to get the latest electronic gadgets if [they] knew it was produced under humane working conditions.” Thus taking a torch to the electronic industry’s excuse of using overseas factories to appease an ‘imagined’ consumer not willing to wait a few extra months for the latest devices and therefore, have their products produced in factories who employ overly harsh overtime policies and dangerous working conditions.

As evidenced in the recent Fair Labor Association’s report on Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer for Apple, Sony, Nintendo and other technology giants, and the recent headlines concerning Apple, corporations are being forced to take a fresh look at they way they conduct business and who they work with.

Besides the technology giants, the restaurant and retail industries should be on notice to treat their workers fairly and not to try to cheat them out of their wages.  An overwhelming majority of respondents (91 percent) said it was important or very important to them “that the stores [they] shop in and the restaurants [they] eat in pay their workers fairly for the wages they are owed.” While 93 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that “employers who cheat their employees out of the wage they have earned should be fined or punished in some way.”

With the Department of Labor’s recent crack down on the retail, hospitality, restaurant, and construction industries, wage theft (any time an employer illegally underpays or does not pay their employee) has been an increasingly hot topic amongst workers, local and state governments and workers’ rights groups.  With a loss in state and local tax revenue, state and local governments have seen how wage theft affects their bottom line and are looking for ways to help workers combat wage theft.

The National Consumers League’s Special Project on Wage Theft has been devoted to furthering the battle against wage theft, striving to educate workers, consumers, businesses, and governments on the effects of wage theft and is building an increased awareness about the nature of wage theft in the United States.

 

Peep this: union-made candy for spring holidays

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft 

With another candy-centric holiday right around the corner, let’s give a shout-out to union-made candies and remind consumers of the opportunity to support pro-worker efforts (collective bargaining for a fair wage and decent benefits) of unions. Below is an extensive list, complied by the good folks at Union Plus. The lists represents the products produced by the hard-working efforts of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM); the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW); and the fruit and nuts from members of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

Included on the list are Hershey and Nestle – two companies that have recently been in the news regarding accusations of child labor in their supply chains. Hershey has pledged to do better, and Nestle has recently partnered with the Fair Labor Association, an independent third party that will monitor Nestle’s supply chains as they did with Apple’s Chinese manufacturer, Foxconn, and launched an investigation into child labor in their supply chains. With this in mind, consumers should have the knowledge to arm themselves in the candy aisle to make informed and responsible choices.

With all the attacks facing unions, please support the efforts of these hard-working men and women and buy union-made holiday candy.

Just Born

• Peeps
• Mike & Ike
• Hot Tamales
• Peanut Chews
• Jelly Beans

Jelly Belly’s Candy Company

• Jelly Bellies – also made in a non-union plants in Chicago/Taiwan
• Chocolate Dutch Mints
• Chocolate Temptations
• Dimples
• Goelitz Confections
• Goelitz Gummi
• Pet Rat
• Pet Tarantula
• Sweet Temptations
• Candy Corn
• Licorice
• Malted Milk Balls
• Chocolate Coated Nuts, & Sours
• Sunkist Fruit Gel Slices

Necco (New England Confectionery Company)

• Sweethearts
• Mary Jane Peanut Butter Chews
• NECCO Wafers/Necco Wafer Smoothies
• Sky Bar
• Clark Bar
• Canada Mints
• Candy Cupboard
• Thin Mints
• NECCO Assorted Junior Wafers
• Clark Junior Laydown Bag
• Mary Jane Laydown Bag
• Haviland
• Mallow Cups
• Necco Peanut Butter Kisses

Ghiradelli Chocolates

• All filled & non filled squares
• Non Pariels
• Chocolate chips

Gimbals Fine Candies

• Jelly Beans
• Cherry Hearts
• Scotty Dogs
• Jelly Beans

Hershey Products

• Hershey Kisses*
• Hershey Syrups
• Hershey Milk Chocolate Bar*
• Hershey Milk with Almond Bars
• Hershey Special Dark Bars
• Hershey Nuggets
• Rolo
• Hershey Kissables
• Kit Kat Bars
• Carmello Bar
• Cadbury Fruit & Nut Bar
• Cadbury Roast Almond Bar
• Cadbury Royal Dark Bar
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Bar
• Jolly Ranchers
• Hershey Symphony Bar with Toffee

See’s (all)

American Licorice

• Black & Red Vines
• Strawberry Ropes

Sconza Candies

• Jawbreakers
• Chocolate Covered Cherries
• Chocolate

Nestle

• Nestle Treasures
• Laffy Taffy
• Kathryn Beich specialty candy
• Baby Ruth*
• Butterfinger*
• Pearson’s Nips
• Famous Old Time Candies (gourmet chocolates)
• Nestle Crunch Butterfinger Crisp

Pearson’s Candy Co.

• Salted Nut Roll
• Nut Goodie
• Mint Patties
• Bun Bars

Anabelles Candy Company

• Boston Baked Beans
• Jordon Almonds
• Rocky Road
• U-Nos
• Look
• Big Hunk
• Abba-Zaba
• Yogurt Nuts & Fruit

*Some products made in Mexico; check the label for country of origin.

For more information on the above list of union-made candy, please visit Union Plus and if you’d like a mobile version of the Union Plus list sent to your phone, please text CANDY to 22555.

DOL considering giving 2 million home care workers basic labor protections

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

It’s amazing. It’s amazing that — during last week’s House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on the proposed Department of Labor’s rules narrowing the definition of “companionship” that would give more than 2 million home care workers basic labor protections — a witness had the audacity to claim that he was opposing the rules as a way to protect his workers. The congressional hearing centered around the home care industry and the workers who perform the invaluable job of taking care of our fast-growing elderly and disabled populations.

The home care industry has enjoyed the loophole in labor law that was originally carved out to exclude occasional babysitters and “elder sitters” (companions) from minimum wage and overtime laws. This loophole allowed them to skirt the basic protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act. These employers do not have to pay their employees minimum wage nor overtime – allowing an employer to legally pay their workers $2 an hour with no legal recourse for the employee. Due to this loophole the home care industry has enjoyed record profits, for example in 2009 the industry made $84.1 billion in profits, and is one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors in today’s economy. Yet the industry has cried ‘foul’ and ‘poor house’ when faced with the possibility of having to pay their workers the basic rights and protections of minimum wage and overtime.

Almost all home care workers are female, and the vast majority are minorities. These women are often the sole breadwinner for their families and are struggling at poverty level wages. In order to survive, a large percentage of home care workers have to depend on social safety-net programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. With the home care workforce projected to grow by nearly 50 percent again by 2018 and be the major source of growth and jobs in the U.S. economy by adding 1.3 million jobs by 2020, something needs to be done to cover these workers under the most basic labor protections.

Yet this witness claimed that having to pay his employees minimum wage and overtime, would adversely affect the workers’ pay. If an employee is already working 50-hour-weeks with no minimum wage and overtime, how would earning an increased wage plus time and a half overtime hurt them? Even at the median wage of $9.34 an hour, with no overtime, a worker would only make $19,427 a year – far below a basic self-sufficiency income for a single adult, let alone someone supporting a family.

Ted Kennedy once said, “No one who works for a living should live in poverty.” It’s time to value the incredible work home care workers do and respect them enough to cover them under the very basic protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act and give them the right to get paid the minimum wage and overtime.

Business lobby seeking the repeal or end of anti-wage theft laws

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Incredible! The old adage “one step forward, two steps back” may soon apply to the groundbreaking New York Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2010 and the Miami-Dade County (Florida) Wage Theft Ordinance. These laws were designed to give workers stronger protections against employers who commit wage theft violations, usually in the form of unpaid wages.

New York

In the New York legislature, some state Republican senators are calling the Wage Theft Prevention Act “a burdensome, costly mandate on every employer in the state” and a “misguided job-killing regulation”. Unfortunately, these same state senators have been able to pass their bill, repealing the law, in the State Senate and are working to have the State Assembly pass a similar bill. The component that state senators seem to have the biggest problem with is the requirement that employers provide employees annually with a written notice on their wages in the primary language of the employee. How is a written notice that explains a person’s wages, in their primary language, be a job killer? The National Consumers League urges the New York Assembly to recognize this thinly veiled attempt by business groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Business Council to repeal a law that protects workers from an illegal action used by employers to help pad their bottom line and not support this GOP-sponsored bill.

Florida

In the Florida legislature, the Florida Retail Federation has joined forces with some state Republican House Members to pass a bill prohibiting all local governments from passing anti-wage theft ordinances. The bill is aimed at stopping counties and cities from following the lead of Miami-Dade County, which passed an ordinance in 2010 protecting workers from wage theft and set up procedures for workers to recover their unpaid wages.

Since the implementation of the anti-wage theft ordinance, the Miami-Dade County Small Business agency has recovered nearly $400,000 in unpaid wages for 313 workers who unlawfully had their wages withheld from them. According to the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy, the US Department of Labor recovered just under $16 million for more than 24,000 workers in Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Broward, Palm Beach, and Orange counties. With all the rampant wage theft violations, especially in Florida’s key industries of tourism, retail trades, and construction, why would state legislators seek to prohibit the strengthening of protections for its workers?

In both states the business lobby seeks an end to the crack down on wage theft violations and the strengthening of worker protections. Do they care more about their bottom line than their employees? The answer seems clear.

Want to make $2 an hour? Neither do tipped workers

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft 

You think your pay is low? You should check out the federal minimum wage for tipped workers – $2.13 an hour.

While nearly all of the non-agricultural jobs in the U.S. must pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, tipped workers (servers, bartenders, bussers, etc.) make the federal minimum wage of $2.13 an hour – frozen since 1991 due to the strong-arm tactics of the restaurant industry tapping down the calls for change. Employers are allowed by law to pay $2.13 an hour to tipped employees as long as tips make up the difference between $2.13 and $7.25, however surveys and interviews with workers indicate that employers frequently ignore this requirement – a clear example of wage theft.

Now you may think – ‘That’s low but okay since most tipped workers are teenagers looking for pocket-money.’  That’s not true – the restaurant industry employs 10 million workers in one of the largest and fastest growing sectors of the U.S. economy. It offers some of the country’s lowest paying jobs, with little to no access to benefits and career advancement.

A report, Tipped Over the Edge: Gender Inequality in the Restaurant Industry by the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), paints the disturbing picture of gender exploitation and abuses throughout an industry that is set to make record profits, even in this current economy. Women make up nearly two-thirds of workers in tipped occupations and are more than 71 percent of wait staff – the largest group of tipped workers. According to Terry O’Neill, President of the National Organization for Women Foundation, the gender wage gap is stark: women servers are paid only 68 percent of what men in the same job are paid ($17,000 vs. $25,000 annually) and African-American women are paid only 60 percent of what their male counterparts are paid. The poverty rate for women, in tipped occupations, is nearly three times the poverty rate for all workers. According to ROC United, ‘servers rely on food stamps at nearly double the rate of the general population’ – meaning, after serving customers food all day they can’t afford to eat.

Is there any light at the end of this long tunnel and what can we do about it? There maybe some light, Congresswoman Donna Edwards has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the WAGES Act (H.S. 631), which seeks to raise the federal minimum wage for all tipped employees. Unfortunately, she only has 27 co-sponsors, to date, and with the powerful restaurant industry – mostly run by the National Restaurant Association (NRA) – it will be an uphill battle.

For more information on the federal tipped minimum wage please check out ROC United, National Women’s Law Center, and the National Employment Law Project.

Head-scratching controversy over NLRB poster ruling

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Since when is it controversial to inform people of their rights and protections afforded under the law? Why is it seen as a ‘job killer,’ a ‘punishment,’ or ‘regulation run amok,’ to simply know your rights in the workplace?

Today’s workers are not taught about their rights when entering the workplace and few high schools teach students about their rights to a minimum wage and rules governing safety in the workplace, let alone their rights to collectively bargain and form a union.  How are Americans expected to learn about those rights? The Department of Labor already requires the placing of posters that inform workers of their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, job safety and others – so why are business groups fighting a new poster?

Business groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses Small Business Legal Center, National Chamber Litigation Center, the Manhattan Institute and others have fought the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) ruling to require most private businesses to put up a poster that explains employees’ rights and protections under the National Labor Relations Act, from 1935, to collectively bargain and form a union. They have argued that the poster – which simply informs workers of their rights and protections – will damage the economy, kill jobs and destroy the employer-employee relationship.

On March 2^nd, a U.S. District judge upheld the right of the NLRB to require most private businesses to put up posters informing workers they have a legal right to form a union. Judge Amy Berman Jackson said, “The notice-posting rule is a reasonable means of promoting awareness.” The US Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Businesses and the National Association of Manufacturers challenged the NLRB’s ruling and questioned the right of the NLRB to require the posters.

The backlash is enough to make one wonder, what legitimate reasons could an honest employer have for keeping their workers in the dark about their rights at work? After all, it’s only a poster…

Good way to start the New Year

By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft 

What a way to start the New Year! This week saw three exceptional events that signal an optimistic outlook for 2012.  President Obama not only decided to use his executive power to make recess appointments but he used them to appoint Richard Cordray to the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and filled the three vacancies at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

With Cordray’s appointment to the CFPB, the Bureau can finally begin its vital mission of standing by consumers, demanding greater transparency about consumer financial products and pursing enforcement actions against financial firms who have defrauded consumers or otherwise violated federal rules. Without a director, the CFPB could not have moved forwarded with its critical work and consumers would be left at the mercy of financial institutions.

Later that same day, President Obama appointed three very qualified individuals to the NLRB – Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn and Richard Griffin. With these appointments the NLRB can continue to police employers, unions, and workers. Without these bipartisan appointments the five seat NLRB would not have had a quorum, having only two seats filled as of January 3rd, and would have been paralyzed until the Senate confirmed the nominees.

None of these events could have happened without President Obama taking the step to stop the nullification of these federal agencies by the minority in the Senate.  According to USA Today, when the Senate minority filibustered Cordray’s nomination last month, it was the first time in history the Senate blocked an appointment in an effort to effectively shut down an agency.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated, “We won’t support a nominee for this bureau – regardless of who the president is.” While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called it “the first time in Senate history a party blocked a qualified nominee solely because it disagrees with the existence of an agency that was created by law, through a bipartisan vote.”

When President Obama stepped up to the plate on Wednesday and used his executive power to make recess appointments, he not only hit it out of the ballpark but he hit a grand slam for American consumers and workers.

New year, new (minimum wage) rules

By Michell K. McIntyre, NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

Thanks to some state legislatures, the start of the New Year means new rules for some workers. Eight states helped their workers with an increase in their state minimum hourly wage. Washington continues to lead the nation with the highest state minimum wage and is the only state with a minimum wage higher than $9. As of January 1, 2012, its minimum wage is $9.04 per hour. Seven other states also increased their minimum wages at the first of the year: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont.

State	Increase	New Hourly Minimum Wage
Arizona	$0.30	$7.65
Colorado	$0.28	$7.64
Florida	$0.36	$7.67
Montana	$0.30	$7.65
Ohio	$0.30	$7.70
Oregon	$0.30	$8.80
Vermont	$0.31	$8.46
Washington	$0.37	$9.04

As of the first of the year, San Francisco leads nationwide minimum hourly wages – federal, state, county, and city; and is the first in the nation to top $10 an hour. The minimum hourly wage increased by 32 cents from $9.92 to $10.24 per hour.

With the start of the New Year, California’s new Wage Theft Prevention Act and Employee Classification Act went into effect. The main points of the new Wage Theft Prevention Act:

• requires employers to provide workers, at the time they’re hired, a written disclosure of their basic terms of employment (the pay rate, the pay day, and the name and address of the legal employer)
• strengthens misdemeanor criminal penalties for employers who willfully fail to pay wages due in 90 days after final judgment
• allows a worker to recover attorney’s fees to enforce a court judgment for unpaid wages.

Some of the main points of the new Employee Classification Act include:

• making it unlawful for any persons or employer to engage in willful employee misclassification (classifying an employee as an ‘independent contractor’ rather than an ‘employee’)
• making it unlawful to charge any fees or make any deductions in a worker’s paycheck for expenses (space rental, services, repairs, good or materials, etc.) where such deductions would have been unlawful had the worker been classified as an employee
• increasing penalties that can be assessed against any employer for willful employee misclassification
• requiring employers who have been found to have committed employee misclassification to display a notice to its employees and the general public on their Web site and/or each location where it occurred.

This New Year, please take the time to examine your paystub and double-check that you’re being paid the correct amount. Remember, the Department of Labor has tools to help you track your pay, overtime and vacation time – an app for your smartphone and a printable work hours calendar in English and Spanish.