USA Today: More lawmakers tackle rise of wage-theft complaints

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-16-wagetheft_N.htm

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY
Agustin Gonzalez became a casualty of the real-estate bust in 2007 when he lost his construction job in the Florida Keys.

Since then, he says, he has become another kind of casualty: a victim of wage theft.

RECESSION-FUELED: Bad economy sparks rise in wage-theft complaints

Gonzalez now works as a day laborer in the Miami area, waiting on street corners or in front of Home Depot for pickup jobs. He says he has been cheated of pay three times, including twice this year on landscaping and construction jobs that cost him at least $2,600.

"I feel like a slave," says Gonzalez, 38, who entered the USA from Panama in 2006 on a work visa that has expired. "I feel like day laborers are just here to be used without respect."
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As the economy falters, lawmakers are taking action on the increase of wage-theft complaints.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Natacha Seijas plans to propose an ordinance cracking down on wage theft next month. The legislation, yet to be drafted, may impose fines or other penalties, she says.

At South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, at least 20 people report wage theft each week, three times as many as a year ago, director Jeanette Smith says. She says that an ordinance would help.

"You don't have people work like slaves and pay them when you want to just because there's a bad economy," Seijas says.

FULL story at link.

have the advantage of labor/wage complaints. Instead they have to go to court for unpaid billing essentially, or more accurately contract disagreement, because the "employer" always claims that the services provided weren't up to snuff, even if they utilized them and relied on them right up till they refused to pay their bill. Usually the savvy "employer" is smart enough to know to play this trick just as the contractor's bill gets to the point that fighting for payment will cost as much or more than the payment, and low enough to stay in small claims court where legal fees are limited to under $50. Additionally the "employers" have lawyers who advice them on every aspect, and coach them very well even if the lawyers themselves are not allowed in court. It's no win and the contractor ends up rolling over.

I know at least 3 others who have been going through this. We are all getting quite skittish about doing anything freelance, and yet there are not "real" jobs in many areas that have offloaded to contract freelancers over the past couple of decades.