Roundabout wage theft: The limits of regulatory protections for Ontario workers in precarious jobs

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran Mirchandani ◽  
Sheldon Matthew Bromfield
Keyword(s):  
Wage Theft ◽  
Precarious Jobs

scholarly journals Industrial legislation in Australia, 2020

2021 ◽  
pp. 002218562110082
Author(s):  
Eugene Schofield-Georgeson
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Workers Compensation ◽  
State Governments ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
Economic Stimulus ◽  
Liberal Government

In 2020, the Federal Morrison Liberal Government scrambled to respond to the effects of the international coronavirus pandemic on the Australian labour market in two key ways. First, through largescale social welfare and economic stimulus (the ‘JobKeeper’ scheme) and second, through significant proposed reform to employment laws as part of a pandemic recovery package (the ‘Omnibus Bill’). Where the first measure was administered by employers, the second was largely designed to suspend and/or redefine labour protections in the interests of employers. In this respect, the message from the Federal Government was clear: that the costs of pandemic recovery should be borne by workers at the discretion of employers. State Labor Governments, by contrast, enacted a range of industrial protections. These included the first Australia ‘wage theft’ or underpayment frameworks on behalf of both employees and contractors in the construction industry. On-trend with state industrial legislation over the past 4 years, these state governments continued to introduce industrial manslaughter offences, increased access to workers’ compensation, labour hire licensing schemes and portable long service leave.

scholarly journals Renta básica y Constitución en el Estado Social alemán (De la renta básica universal a la renta básica colectiva)

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-242
Author(s):  
Janire MIMENTZA MARTIN
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Security System ◽  
Protection System ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Subsistence Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Precarious Jobs

LABURPENA: Gaur egun, enplegu prekarioek ez dute gutxieneko bizitza ziurtatzen, eta etorkizunerako «lana amaitzea» aurreikusten da. Gainera, ongizate sistemen akatsen eta mugen aurrean, beharrezkoa da gizarte-babeserako sistema berraztertzea: oinarrizko errenta unibertsala aukera popularrena dela dirudi. Oinarrizko errenta gizarte-erreformaren ideiarekin bat etortzen den arren, ikerketa honen pertzepzioak aurrerapen txikien politika gidatu behar dela ezartzea du, azken batean, Gizarte Segurantzako sistema bateratze partzial bat lortuz, eta ez bera desegitea. Gaur egun, ezaugarri hauei dagozkien adibideak daude, gizarteko talde zehatzetarako (esate baterako, alemaniar adingabekoei) oinarrizko errenta bat ematen zaie. Zalantzarik gabe, adibide hau aurrerapauso handi bat da, pentsioetan belaunaldien banaketaren sistema eredua jarraitzen duten ordenamendu guztien eredu —beraien artean espainola— izan daitekeelako. ABSTRACT: At present, the precarious jobs do not assure the subsistence level, and the future forecasts «the end of work». In addition, because of the defects and limits of the welfare systems, a rethinking of the social protection system is necessary: universal basic income seems to be the most popular option. Although the basic income is usually based on the idea of social reform, the perception of this study is that its implementation should be guided by a policy of small advances, which ultimately make possible a partial reform of the Social Security system, not its dismantling. There are currently examples with these characteristics, for specific groups (e.g. minors in Germany) to which a basic income is being granted. Without a doubt, it is a big step in that direction, which can serve as a model to be followed by all legal systems —among them Spanish one— that follow a system of generational distribution (pay-as-you-go system) in pensions. RESUMEN: En la actualidad, los empleos precarios no aseguran el mínimo vital, y para el futuro se pronostica el «fin del trabajo». Además, ante los defectos y límites de los sistemas asistenciales es necesario un replanteamiento del sistema de protección social: la renta básica universal parece ser la opción más popular. Aunque normalmente la RB se basa en la idea de una reforma social, la percepción de este estudio es que su implementación debe ir dirigida por una política de pequeños avances, que al final posibiliten una reforma parcial del sistema de Seguridad Social, no su desmantelamiento. Existen en la actualidad ejemplos con estas características, para colectivos específicos (ej. menores en Alemania) a los que —en la práctica— se les está otorgando una RB. Sin duda, es un gran paso en esa dirección, que puede servir como modelo a seguir por los ordenamientos jurídicos —entre ellos el español— que siguen un sistema de reparto generacional en pensiones.

Disability and Precarious Work

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Schur ◽  
Douglas L. Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Current Population Survey ◽  
Population Survey ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Pay Gap ◽  
Precarious Work ◽  
Current Population ◽  
Prejudice And Discrimination ◽  
Precarious Jobs

This chapter examines the prevalence, causes, and consequences of precarious work among people with disabilities. New US evidence from the government’s Current Population Survey, and reviews of prior studies, show that workers with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to be in precarious jobs. This is explained in part by many people with disabilities choosing precarious jobs due to the flexibility these jobs can provide. Other people with disabilities, however, face prejudice and discrimination in obtaining standard jobs and must resort to taking precarious jobs with less security, lower pay and benefits, little or no training and opportunities for advancement, and few, if any, worker protections. Workers with disabilities tend to have worse outcomes on these measures than workers without disabilities in every type of employment arrangement. The disability pay gap is higher in precarious jobs than in full-time permanent jobs. The mixed evidence suggests that precarious jobs create good employment outcomes for some workers with disabilities but bad outcomes for others. While continued efforts are needed to decrease barriers to traditional employment for people with disabilities, efforts are also needed to bring higher pay and greater legal protections to precarious workers, which would especially benefit workers with disabilities.

Wage Theft as a Legal Concept

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-150
Author(s):  
Sarah Green
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Legal Concept ◽  
Social Concept ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Public Concerns

This chapter analyses the fraud offence from the perspective of ‘wage theft’. The social concept of a ‘wage theft’ encompasses a wide range of dishonest or ‘sharp’ practices: false labelling of individuals as ‘self-employed’ and hence outside the scope of the National Minimum Wage framework, failure to pay holiday pay, unlawful deductions, and an absence of transparency in relation to wage entitlements. It is linked to wider public concerns about the effective enforcement of the statutory minimum wage regime. The chapter then examines whether the social concept of ‘wage theft’ maps onto the legal definition of ‘theft’ in section 1 of the Theft Act 1968. It argues the legal label of theft is ill-suited to the constellation of practices associated with the social label of ‘wage theft’. This is because of the disjunction between the proprietary status of ‘wages’ and the offence elements of theft in English law. In short, unpaid wages will often not count as ‘property belonging to another’ at the time of the dishonest appropriation by the employer, hence there is a difficulty with identifying a complete and coincident mens rea and actus reus.

“No Place for Old Men”: Immigrant Duration, Wage Theft, and Economic Mobility among Day Laborers in Denver, Colorado

2021 ◽  
pp. 019791832110013
Author(s):  
Rebecca Galemba ◽  
Randall Kuhn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The United States ◽  
Day Laborers ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Day Labor ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Recent Immigrants ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
Long Duration

Day laborers are a highly vulnerable population, due to their contingent work arrangements, low socioeconomic position, and precarious immigration status. Earlier studies posited day labor as a temporary bridge for recent immigrants to achieve more stable employment, but recent studies have observed increasing duration of residence in the United States among foreign-born day laborers. This article draws on 170 qualitative interviews and a multi-venue, year-long street corner survey of 411 day laborers in the Denver metropolitan area to analyze how duration in the United States affects day laborers’ wages, work, and wage theft experiences. Compared to recent immigrants, foreign-born day laborers with longer duration in the United States, we found, worked fewer hours and had lower total earnings but also had higher hourly wages and lower exposure to wage theft. We draw on qualitative interviews to address whether this pattern represented weathering, negative selection, or greater discernment. Rather than upward or downward mobility, long duration immigrant day labors had more jagged incorporations experiences. Interviews suggest that day laborers draw on experience to mitigate the risk of wage theft but that the value of experience is undercut by the fierce competition of daily recruitment, ultimately highlighting the compounding vulnerabilities facing longer duration and older immigrant day laborers. The article highlights duration as an understudied precarity factor which can adversely impact the economic assimilation of long duration immigrants who persist in contingent markets like day labor.

Women’s Wage Theft

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miruna Petrescu-Prahova ◽  
Michael W. Spiller
Keyword(s):  
Wage Theft

scholarly journals 134,368 Unnamed Workers: Client-Centered Representation on Behalf of H-2A Agricultural Guestworkers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Briana Beltran
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hourly Wage ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
Worker Empowerment ◽  
Civil Lawsuits ◽  
Worker Voice

Forthcoming in: NYU Review of Law and Social Change Each year, tens of thousands of workers, mostly from Mexico and mostly men, enter the United States on temporary visas to labor in its agricultural fields. H-2A workers, as they are known, are the ultimate outsiders: contracted by a single employer for a specified period, they face dangerous labor and housing conditions, without the option of seeking other employment and with no other ties to or rights in the United States. Despite a robust regulatory scheme that mandates terms including their hourly wage and expenses their employer is required to cover, H-2A workers are frequently exploited, experiencing everything from wage theft to the extraction of unlawful recruitment fees. To compound the problem, the systems in place to redress these wrongs are woefully insufficient: government enforcement is weak, and H-2A workers’ ability to take direct action is undercut by factors such as their temporary and isolated presence in the United States and the intentional limitations on their rights and access to legal representation under federal law. Despite these constraints, there are examples of H-2A workers who have filed civil lawsuits against their employers. Having done so, they still encounter obstacles to their full participation in the process, due to the lack of familiarity with the U.S. legal system and the likelihood that the litigation will continue while they are in their home countries. In this article, I explore strategies for minimizing the disconnect between H-2A workers and the process of civil litigation, and consider the ways in which litigation itself can be an empowering process and a vehicle for amplifying worker voice. Using the frame of client-centered lawyering, and drawing on two recent case studies of community lawyering among low-wage immigrant workers, I discuss the methods that lawyers representing H-2A workers can employ during the various stages of a civil lawsuit in order to ensure that their clients are not again relegated to an outsider status. In particular, I focus on four “moments” in the life of a case: the decision to file a lawsuit, the drafting of the complaint, discovery, and trial. Moreover, I also consider how client voice can be amplified outside of the four corners of a lawsuit, and provide strategies for how to amplify worker voice while settling cases and discuss the downstream, indirect effects of litigation on H-2A worker empowerment. By putting these considerations into practice, I argue that litigation itself can serve as an empowering experience for H-2A workers and shed light on the abuses within the H-2A program more generally.

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