Week after week, Guadalupe Rangel worked seven days straight, sometimes 11 hours a day, unloading dining room sets, trampolines, television stands and other imports from Asia that would soon be shipped to Walmart stores. Even though he often clocked 70 hours a week at the Schneider warehouse here, he was never paid time-and-a-half overtime, he said. And now, having joined a lawsuit involving hundreds of warehouse workers, Mr. Rangel stands to receive more than $20,000 in back pay as part of a recent $21 million legal settlement with Schneider, a national trucking company. “Sometimes I’d work 60, even 90 days in a row,” said Mr. Rangel, a soft-spoken immigrant from Mexico. “They never paid overtime.” The lawsuit is part of a flood of recent cases — brought in California and across the nation — that accuse employers of violating minimum wage and overtime laws, erasing work hours and wrongfully taking employees’ tips. Worker advocates call these practices “wage theft,” insisting it has become far too prevalent. Some federal and state officials agree. They assert that more companies are violating wage laws than ever before, pointing to the record number of enforcement actions they have pursued. They complain that more employers — perhaps motivated by fierce competition or a desire for higher profits — are flouting wage laws. Many business groups counter that government officials have... |
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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.
Monday, September 1, 2014
More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’
Today's post is shared from Steven Greenhouse at nytimes.com
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Labor Day: Wages and Salaries Still Lag as Corporate Profits Surge
Today's post is shared from the nytimes.com In the months before Labor Day last year, job growth was so slow that economists said it would take until 2021 to replace the jobs that were lost or never created in the recession and its aftermath. The pace has picked up since then; at the current rate, missing jobs will be recovered by 2018. Still, five years into an economic recovery that has been notable for resurging corporate profits, the number and quality of jobs are still lagging badly, as are wages and salaries. In 2013, after-tax corporate profits as a share of the economy tied with their highest level on record (in 1965), while labor compensation as a share of the economy hit its lowest point since 1948. Wage growth since 1979 has not kept pace with productivity growth, resulting in falling or flat wages for most workers and big gains for corporate coffers, shareholders, executives and others at the top of the income ladder. Worse, the recent upturn in growth, even if sustained, will not necessarily lead to markedly improved living standards for most workers. That’s because the economy’s lopsidedness is not mainly the result of market forces, but of the lack of policies to ensure broader prosperity. The imbalance will not change without labor and economic reforms. For instance, new research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014, hourly wages, adjusted for inflation, fell for nearly everyone. An exception was a small gain for the bottom 10... |
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- Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for the Economy (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- California Legislature Passes Bill to Protect Temp Workers (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Wage Theft -- Another Assault on Workers' Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Jobs are coming back, but they don't pay enough (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Wal-Mart & McDonald's: Passing the Buck to Taxpayers (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Florida exclusive remedy ruling may upend workers compensation system
Injured workers in Florida might be able to receive both workers compensation benefits and civil liability damages should an appeal filed last week by the Florida attorney general’s office fail to overturn a ruling that declared the state’s exclusive remedy provision unconstitutional.
That and other litigation challenging workers comp reforms eventually could result in higher comp premiums for employers in the state, experts say.
In the most recent ruling, Judge Jorge E. Cueto of Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit Court ruled last month in Florida Workers’ Advocates v. State of Florida that the state’s workers comp exclusive remedy is unconstitutional because workers comp reforms have “decimated” comp benefits and “no longer (provide) a reasonable alternative” to allowing workers to sue in civil court.
Exclusive remedy rules in Florida, and in most other states, make workers comp the sole way to recover money for their injuries. Liability lawsuits typically are allowed only in the case of gross negligence by an employer.
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What’s more, employers could see similar cases challenging workers comp laws and exclusive remedy provisions in other states where injured workers feel that workers comp reforms have stripped them of too many benefits, said Charles Davoli, Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based president of the Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group, which is a plaintiff in the Miami-Dade County case.
“Workers comp systems, which are a century old, are in crisis,” Mr. Davoli said. The Miami-Dade case “is what I would term the tip of the (workers comp) ‘deform’ iceberg,” he said, citing states such as Montana and Georgia as ones that could see legal challenges to limits on workers comp benefits.
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Related articles
- Florida Businesses, Insurers to Fight Ruling Overturning Workers' Comp System (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Injured employees cheated by workers' comp law, Miami-Dade judge says (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Federal judge rules Florida workers' compensation law unconstitutional (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- The Father of the 11th Circuit Court Decision (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- A Motion for Rehearing in Florida Workers' Advocates v. State of Florida (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Florida Court Holds Exclusive Remedy Facially Unconstitutional (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Commentary: Florida court ruling may force closer look at workers’ comp
Today's article is shared from palmbechpost.com
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On Aug. 13, a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge declared that the state’s workers’ compensation system is unconstitutional and an inadequate alternative to allowing workers to take their employers to court for injuries and illnesses caused by employers’ negligence or, as is too often the case, reckless indifference to health and safety (“Workers’ Compensation Act declared unconstitutional,” Aug. 17). Many injured workers I have interviewed over the past decade would never have thought they would see the day when a court finally said that the emperor has no clothes. For the past century, workers’ compensation systems have been the exclusive remedy for workers hurt or made ill on the job in almost every state, meaning that workers are not allowed to go to court. At best, workers’ compensation was always a compromise. Workers were supposed to receive modest but guaranteed and timely partial wage replacement payments and medical care in exchange for giving up their right to sue employers for any negligent actions that led to their injuries. Employers gained a “risk management” strategy exchanging unpredictable lawsuits for the obligation to insure workers against all work related injuries regardless of the cause of injury. But many labor leaders have been less than impressed with this so-called “grand bargain” between workers and employers. Workers’... |
Related articles
- Florida Businesses, Insurers to Fight Ruling Overturning Workers' Comp System (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Injured employees cheated by workers' comp law, Miami-Dade judge says (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Federal judge rules Florida workers' compensation law unconstitutional (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- The Father of the 11th Circuit Court Decision (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- A Motion for Rehearing in Florida Workers' Advocates v. State of Florida (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Florida Court Holds Exclusive Remedy Facially Unconstitutional (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
A Motion for Rehearing in Florida Workers' Advocates v. State of Florida
Todays post is authored by Judge David Langham and shared from http://flojcc.blogspot.com/ This week finds me off of my regular Monday/Wednesday schedule again. Whether you call it "Padgett," or "that 11th Circuit case," you are all talking about Judge Cueto's August 13, 2014 determination that the Florida Workers' Compensation law is unconstitutional. It is now styled as Florida Workers' Advocates v. State of Florida, case no 11-13661 CA 25. Last week in Orlando (at the WCI conference where thousands discussed all that is Florida workers' compensation), I heard a great deal about this decision. People agree with it, disagree with it, think it is important, think it is of minimal relevance, claim they understand it and deny that they do. People have thoughts, opinions, questions, and more. The opinions, interpretations, thoughts and discussion are all over the board. Many people told me how thorough and concise they thought Judge Cueto's 27 page order is. Substance is one thing, but I consistently heard compliments on the drafting. One major question raised repeatedly was "what will happen with this next." Well, I take to the blogosphere this Thursday morning, outside my Monday/Wednesday habit, to tell you that shoe has dropped. The "next" is a Motion for Rehearing filed by the Florida Attorney General. The Motion was filed August 22, 2014 and is not complimentary, referring to the case as being in a "procedural morass." The Attorney General complains that the intervenors brought this case... |
Explosion at BP refinery in Whiting released sulfur dioxide
Today's post is shared from abc7chicago.com/ BP officials have notified the state of Indiana that more than 500 pounds of sulfur dioxide were released into the air following an explosion at refinery in northwestern Indiana. Indiana Department of Environmental Management spokesman Dan Goldblatt says the agency is still preparing a report but the initial indication is that the release didn't cause any air quality problems. BP spokesman Scott Dean says there's no indication the explosion had any environmental impact. Dean says the explosion Wednesday night was caused by a compressor in one of the units of the refinery. He says the plant was continuing to operate Thursday. He wouldn't comment on whether it affected the production at the plant. The plant is in Whiting, just east of Chicago, along Lake Michigan. |
Disappointing summer for progress by OSHA on new worker safety regulations
Just before Memorial Day—the kickoff of the summer season—the Obama Administration released its agenda for upcoming regulatory action. In the worker safety world of OSHA, “regulatory action” rarely means a new regulation. Rather, it refers to a step along the long, drawn-out process to (maybe) a new rule to protect workers from occupational injuries, illnesses or deaths. The items identified by the Labor Department suggested that OSHA planned a productive summer of 2014. Here’s what OSHA outlined for its summer tasks. In May 2014:
Accomplished? NO In June 2014:
Accomplished? NO In July 2014:
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