Immigrants Navigate The Painstaking Process Of Getting Back Unpaid Wages

Immigrants face wage theft at almost twice the rate of citizens, though it’s a problem that affects all kinds of workers. The Economic Policy Institute estimates employers fail to pay their workers some $50 billion each year.

ELIZABETH TROVALL | POSTED ON JUNE 4, 2019, 12:00 PM

Employers owe American workers billions of dollars in unpaid wages each year, as much as $50 billion in 2016, according to estimates from the progressive Economic Policy Institute. 

Despite the prevalence of wage theft, workers face an uphill battle when they go up against employers.

Even when workers can prove they haven’t been paid for their work, getting their money back is a painstaking and often unsuccessful process.

In late 2017, Maria Soto, a legal resident living in Houston, didn’t receive adequate payment after working at a taco truck. And she’s still pursuing actions to get her money. 

Soto went to the community advocacy group Faith and Justice Worker Center for help.

Last summer, advocates with the worker center started a dialogue with the taco truck owner, who refused to pay Soto. 

After numerous calls, arrangements were made to meet at the worker center for payment negotiations.

“We made an agreement that she was going to come here. I came two times to the Faith and Justice Worker Center because supposedly she was going to come to pay here and she never came,” Soto said in Spanish. 

Eight months later, Soto took her case to a local justice of the peace, who ruled in her favor saying she’s owed $1,600 in back wages.

But she still hasn’t seen a dime. 

“(I felt) frustrated, and at the same time afraid,” she said, afraid that she might not get her money.

Marianela Acuña Arreaza is all too familiar with stories like this. She directs the Faith and Justice Worker Center, a non-profit that works with low-wage Latino immigrant workers.

“For this year, 100% of the cases that we have taken to both the Texas Workforce Commission as well as justice of the peace courts here in the city, we have won, and we have recovered zero dollars,” said Acuña Arreaza.

In Texas, justices of the peace don’t have direct enforcement power in wage cases, though their rulings can be used to take further steps to seek payment.

Losing that money is a blow to families on a tight budget. Over the last year, the average wage theft claim reported to the worker’s center has been about $3,300, close to 22% of the annual income for someone earning minimum wage. And the problem isn’t just in Houston.

“We believe that what we report is the very tip of the iceberg,” said Acuña Arreaza.

Full article: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2019/06/04/335593/immigrants-navigate-the-painstaking-process-of-getting-back-unpaid-wages/