Wage theft a big problem for low paid workers

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-higher-minimum-wage-alone-wont-solve-low-wage-workers-problems/ar-BBsJ5Gz?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=edgsp

This month both California and New York passed path-breaking legislation to increase the minimum wage, up to $15 by 2022 for California and by 2018 for the slightly more ambitious Empire State. Opponents, especially in low-wage industries, decried the negative impact the change will have on their purportedly slim profit margins. Meanwhile, advocates praised the move, citing widening inequality and soaring corporate profits as evidence of needed change.

Some advocates are critical, calling the change too little, too late and too slowly phased in; they note the higher wage is still far below a living wage in many of the most expensive housing markets in these states.

But there is far too little discussion on how exactly this change, which at least labor leaders agree is moving in the right direction, will be implemented on the ground. Wage theft – the phenomenon of people not getting paid for their work – is ubiquitous and, some argue, the epidemic that no one is talking about. A 2009 study of low-wage workers in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City found that minimum wage violations were one of the most commonly reported worker complaints, with 26 percent of workers surveyed paid less than the legally required minimum wage and 60 percent reporting underpayment of at least $1.

In my own study of low-wage workers contesting workplace abuse in the San Francisco Bay area, I found that over a third of all survey respondents, and 59 percent of undocumented claimants, reported having experienced a wage and hour violation, which also includes lack of overtime and missed breaks that are mandated by the state.