We've all heard the argument that unions were needed during the age of the robber barons, but have since "outlived their usefulness."
A 2008 landmark survey of nearly 5,000 workers in low-wage industries in America's three largest cities has returned alarming results showing that millions of workers are still routinely being robbed of wages and denied protection under U.S. labor law.
Conducted by the Center for Urban Development, the National Employment Law Project and the U.C.L.A. Institute for Research on Labor Employment , the survey--focusing on Chicago, Los Angeles and New York--found that 26 percent of workers in the sample were paid less than the legally required minimum wage in the previous week. Sixty percent of the workers were underpaid by more than $1 per hour.
The survey found that low-wage workers regularly face resistance in collecting workers' compensation benefits. Of the workers sampled who experienced a serious injury on the job, only 8 percent filed a workers' compensation claim. When workers reported their injuries to their employer, 50 percent experienced illegal retaliation, including firing and demanding that the worker not file a claim. Half of the injured workers paid their medical bills out of their own pockets.
According to the report:
When unscrupulous employers break the law and drive down labor standards, they rob families of needed money to put food on the table ... Communities lose spending power. State and local governments are deprived of tax revenues. And the nation is [robbed] of the good jobs and workplace standards needed to compete in the global economy.
The study's sponsors call for restoring funding levels to government agencies responsible for enforcing labor laws and strengthening penalties for violations. They propose that government investigators and agencies work more closely with unions and other organizations that advocate for workers.
Since many of the workers subjected to workplace abuses in such industries as hotel and restaurant and construction are immigrants, the sponsors propose a "strong firewall" between workplace and immigrant inspections. When some workers fear deportation for making claims for lost wages or exposing violations of the law, all workers are at risk, say the study's backers.
In a September 3 editorial on the study, the New York Times wrote:
It is, of course, morally abhorrent that the American economy should be so riddled with exploitation. But it is also powerfully evident that there are practical consequences when the powerless are abused.