Labor Day, But Not Much To Celebrate

A study came out this past week - Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers.  They looked at front-line workers (not including managers and supervisors) in low wage industries in New York, Chicago and LA.

We found that many employment and labor laws are regularly and systematically violated, impacting a significant part of the low-wage labor force in the nation’s largest cities.

I'm reading the study now, and it's pretty disturbing.  I'm not surprised that this stuff is going on, but like most folks, I assumed that this was one of those "few bad apples" things.  There are many employers in low wage industried who don't screw their employees, but the magnitude and pervasiveness of the problem is shocking.  Of the people they studied, 3/4 of those who worked overtime were cheated out of some or all of their overtime pay.  Half of those who had a serious workplace injury experienced a violation of workmen's compensation laws by their employer.  43% of workers who complained about a workplace issue or tried to form a union experienced retaliation from their employer. 

Rebuilding our economy on the back of illegal working conditions is not only morally but also economically untenable. When unscrupulous employers break the law and drive down labor standards, they rob families of badly needed money to put food on the table. They rob communities of spending power. They rob state and local governments of vital tax revenues. And they rob the nation of the good jobs and workplace standards needed to compete in the global economy.

They're right about that, of course, but I don't suspect that we're going to see anything done about it any time soon.  Our country has a really weird relationship with it's low-wage workers.  We'd be completely sunk without them, although we don't like to admit it.  They're the grease that keeps our economy moving.  But we don't really value what they do, nor do we value them.  They're "not like us".  They're lazy, unmotivated, probably not very bright, probably not very honest.  We resist any attempts to raise their wages to an amount sufficient to pay for food, shelter, etc. because what they do isn't worth a decent wage.  We resent having to expend tax dollars for public assistance programs to make up the gap between what they're paid and what it costs to live.  

We stack the deck against them then tell them it's their fault they're losing, and that they'd be greedy and ungrateful to ask for a reshuffle, and disrespectful of all of the work their betters did in putting the deck together for them. 

It's a heck of a world...



FT