Cook County employers are shortchanging more than 146,000 workers a week. That’s what University of Illinois at Chicago researchers are calculating based on a new survey. The study shows companies are flouting everything from the minimum wage to federally mandated meal breaks. Government regulators say they’re doing their best to enforce the laws. But the study’s authors say they could be doing more.
A Polish immigrant named Dariusz Jaworski takes me to a century-old mansion on Chicago’s North Side and shakes his head.
JAWORSKI [Speaks in Polish].
Jaworski worked more than a year to help turn the mansion into a Catholic school’s administrative center. He says his boss promised $15 an hour. For that, Jaworski scrubbed red bricks, installed new windows, helped re-shingle a roof, demolished walls... But he didn’t always get paid.
JAWORSKI [Speaks in Polish].
When he finally quit last year, Jaworski says his boss owed him more than $8,000. That made it hard for him to pay the rent on a Palatine apartment he shares with his daughter and to send money to his wife, who’s back in Poland. He ran up thousands of dollars on credit cards. Something else hurt more.
JAWORSKI [Speaks in Polish].
Jaworski says he couldn’t afford to visit his wife for more than a year.
THEODORE: Frontline workers in low-wage industries lose more than $7 million per week.
Professor Nik Theodore says that’s the rough cost of labor-law violations in Cook County alone. He directs the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development. The figure comes from a study the center is releasing today.
ALLEN: The department takes these reports seriously.
Scott Allen is a U.S. Department of Labor spokesman. He says the Cook County numbers reflect what the feds are hearing from other parts of the country.
ALLEN: We are definitely listening to these organizations and taking action on their recommendations.
The Illinois Department of Labor says last year it received more than 8,000 complaints. It collected unpaid wages and overtime payments totaling more than $3.1 million.
Theodore’s study suggests that’s a tiny fraction of what’s owed. His crew surveyed 1,140 workers in Cook County. Theodore says nearly half the sample had suffered at least one pay-related violation in the previous week.
THEODORE: We’re talking about minimum-wage violations, overtime, not having access to workers compensation when they’ve been injured, working off the books, meaning before or after their shift, and so on.
The data show the most vulnerable workers are immigrants, especially those who lack authorization to work in this country. But the survey found that employers are stealing from every demographic group.
The industries range from retail to home health care, warehousing to private security. Theodore says shorting workers has ripple effects.
THEODORE: It robs the communities that they live in from the economic stimulus that this spending would generate. It robs municipalities and the state from the tax revenue from that kind of spending.
The study says regulators should do more than just respond to complaints. It recommends pro-active investigations and crackdowns on repeat offenders.
The Illinois Department of Labor says it would like to do these things but it’s up against a budget crunch.
There are some efforts to get tougher. The Illinois Senate last month passed legislation that would increase fines for many labor violations. The bill would also set up criminal penalties for repeat offenders.
Worker advocates are also lobbying President Barack Obama’s administration to do its part. U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis addressed wage theft on a visit to Chicago last week.
SOLIS: I have already added 250 investigators in the Wage and Hour Division alone. And we are not done yet!
More than a year since he quit the mansion renovation, Dariusz Jaworski isn’t counting on the regulators to get him the pay he’s owed. Jaworski and two co-workers on that project are going another route.
JAWORSKI [Speaks in Polish].
With help from a couple nonprofit groups, they’ve filed a federal lawsuit against the contractor.
