Immigrants Navigate The Painstaking Process Of Getting Back Unpaid Wages
- Jun 5, 2019
- 2 min read
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/
I just read the article at the link you shared and it really highlights how tough it can be for workers to get what they’re owed when employers refuse to pay, especially for people in vulnerable situations who may not know where to turn or feel afraid to speak up, and it reminded me a bit of how important it is to understand different business models and worker protections in general, like when I was recently reading about the easyjet low cost airline and how companies balance keeping costs down with treating people fairly, because even outside of aviation there are always trade-offs and challenges that affect real people’s lives, and in this case the article shows that even when workers…
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It is truly heartbreaking to read about how much these workers have to endure just to receive the money they’ve already earned. The detail about the worker who was owed thousands but only received a fraction of it after months of waiting really highlights how the system often fails those who are most vulnerable. It makes you realize how many people are silently struggling with these legal hurdles while trying to support their families. Navigating complex paperwork and labor laws feels like a full-time job in itself, and I’ve seen friends seeking New Assignment Help in Australia to manage their own complicated documentation, which just shows how universal the need for guidance is. I wonder if there will ever be…
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