Sweatshop Conditions in US Cities

Overtime violations occur frequently as 76% of respondents exceeding 40 hours work during the previous week were denied time-and-a-half pay as required. Non-hourly workers fared worst, especially with jobs in personal and repair services, private households, retail and drug stores, and home health care. Best off were food and furniture manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing employees. Again, companies with under 100 employees were the most flagrant violators.

Off-the-clock violations were also commonplace, affecting 70% of workers surveyed, unpaid for exceeding their regular shifts, especially in private households, social assistance, and home health care jobs.

Meal break violations affected 69% of workers, denied breaks or having them shortened or interrupted. Overall, study findings revealed "routine violations of labor and employment laws across the wide range of industries, occupations and workplaces....But the low-wage labor market is not monolithic (as) 49% (of workers said) their employers offered them health insurance, provided paid vacation days, paid sick days, or had given them a raise in the past year."

Workplace Violations Related to Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Other Worker Characteristics

Not surprisingly, US-born workers and those best educated fared best, undocumented foreign-born ones (especially Latinos) worst, and women experienced more violations than men over minimum wages. In contrast, overtime, off-the-clock, and meal break violations varied much less demographically.

Wage Theft

As noted above, it steals 15% of worker wages amounting to $2,634 annually on an average $17,616 total earnings. Also in a given week, over 1.1 million workers in the three cities studied experienced at least one pay-related violation costing them over $56 million in total - mostly over unpaid minimum wages but also the above cited abuses.

Protecting American Workers - What Can Be Done

The problem is endemic in key industries throughout the country, and has a profound effect on workers, their families and communities. The cities studied aren't unique as evidence nationwide suggests. Low-wage worker rights are compromised in jobs ranging from agriculture, meat and poultry processing, hotels, nursing homes, day care centers, retailing, and residential construction in every city where exploitive day labor hiring sites exist.

Ending employer abuses depends on strengthening labor laws and having federal and local governments enforce them. However, since passage of the landmark 1935 National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, workers have been disadvantaged ever since, more than ever today at a time of weak unions, empowered companies, and an economic crisis letting employers cut jobs, wages and benefits freely, and have government turn a blind eye to their most egregious violations.

Fixing these problems needs new leadership in charge of mass organizing, building unity and strength of numbers, and educating workers on what they've lost and how to win it back. In a globalized corporate world and hostile governments, workers must go on the offensive, take to the streets, go on strike, hold boycotts, demand more from elected officials, replace unresponsive ones, and battle the old-fashioned way for fair labor laws and government officials they can count on for enforcement. Short of that, labor rights will keep deteriorating until workers across the board are totally at the mercy of unscrupulous employers, while government remains indifferent to their plight. Conditions are well eroded already, and nothing short of total mass-commitment has a chance to reverse it.

Addendum on Wal-Mart

With over $400 billion in sales and about 2.1 million employees, the company ranks third globally in the 2009 Fortune 500 rankings behind Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil.

In 2008, Wal-Mart's average full-time Associate, its most common position, earned $10.84 an hour (for a 34-hour week) or an annual income of $19,165, $2,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of four. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2, 2008), the average full-time Wal-Mart Associate last year earned 16% less than the average retail wage. At the same time, its CEO Lee Scott (January 2000 - January 2009) earned $29.7 million in total compensation.

On December 23, 2008, the company announced that it settled 63 wage and hour class action lawsuits, representing about 86% of the 73 total pending. Through evidence obtained and employee testimonies, these cases revealed company ruthlessness in keeping labor costs down and unions out.

Legal documents showed that managers are rewarded for forcing employees to work off-the-clock, skip meal and rest breaks, then manipulate time and wage records to cut costs. They also overwork minors and keep them during school hours. An internal July 2000 company audit revealed that these violations were longstanding. Company executives engaged in illegal activity and hid the evidence to avoid liability.

Under terms of the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed pay at least $352 million and perhaps as much as $640 million to present and former employees. According to Professor Paul Secunda of Marquette's School of Law, the company settled to avoid an even worse defeat, including what unionization might cost.