Protecting What's Right

So, you got the job.

Now you are ready for all the perks and nuisances that come with full time employment. You can finally get that cracked tooth fixed, you can add at least a dozen friends to your Facebook profile and well, you’ll figure out a way to deal with the guy who wanted your job to go to his old college roommate. Not to mention that your paycheck will be automatically deposited and you won’t have to worry about all the financial stuff you were dealing with when you were a part-timer.

You can focus on the job to be done, knowing that your employer will handle the rest. And it will never cross your mind that they won’t. Because you are a hard worker –- just the sort of all-American employee that corporations rely upon to build solid profits, even if that means taking advantage of you here and there to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

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We continue to be concerned about the rights of people across the nation who, during this tough economic time, feel like they have no options. Case in point: men and women who are fortunate enough to have jobs but are required to work overtime without pay.

Contrary to how some would “position” this issue, the cases of overtime violations we are seeing are not those of small business owners/ entrepreneurs relying on that go-get-’em spirit of the American worker. Rather, they are flagrant abuses of employees by corporations well heeled enough to pay fairly.

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CNN’s Freedom Project to end modern-day slavery has brought some stunning statistics to our attention. How could it be that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year? (This according to a 2007 report from the U.S. State Department). Moreover, how could 20 percent of all trafficking victims be children?

It seems implausible that slavery of any type could exist today. However, the mere distance of the majority of this trafficking serves as a sort of anesthesia, easing slavery’s reality neatly out of our consciousness.

So our guilt is eased – until we see slavery in our own backyards.

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Wall Street goliath Goldman Sachs has disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is being sued by computer network technicians for overtime pay.  The five plaintiffs, who routinely worked over 70 hours a week without receiving overtime pay, are seeking class action certification for themselves and others who were not paid overtime for work over the 40-hour workweek, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Their lawsuit claims that more than 100 employees in New Jersey and New York have been underpaid by Goldman Sachs.

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The U.S. Department of Labor is stepping up its investigation of pay practices in the health care industry after discovering widespread violations by hospitals and nursing homes not paying overtime to nurses and other employees who work more than 40 hours a week.

Hospitals across the country have settled claims in the millions of dollars for back wages and are fighting class action law suits alleging overtime pay violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

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A U.S. District Court judge in Chicago has certified a class action against Smith & Wollensky steak house by employees claiming the restaurant violated state and federal wage laws.

In the lawsuit, employees allege that the chain’s Chicago restaurant paid less than the state minimum wage and did not pay overtime to hourly workers.  The restaurant violated the law allowing payment of less than the minimum wage to workers who make tips by requiring them to perform non-tipped duties before opening and after closing, while still paying them the lower tipped wage.   The company also allowed non-tipped employees to share in the tip pool, in violation of Illinois minimum-wage laws.  The suit also covers workers who were not paid overtime wages for time worked over 40 hours in a week.

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California representative Linda Sanchez has introduced legislation that would expand overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to home care workers providing health care and domestic services to the elderly and disabled.  For 35 years, home care workers have been exempt from FLSA overtime protections, which requires overtime in the amount of time-and-a-half of the hourly rate to non-exempt workers for time worked over 40 hours in a week.

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