McTeague Higbee's Attorney Jeffrey Young writes about how low-paid workers deserve better protection from wage theft

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MAINE VOICES : Low-paid workers workers deserve better protection from wage theft

A recent study shows that more than a quarter of workers are paid less than the legal minimum wage.

Workers across the nation are hurting. Those who are fortunate to have jobs are working longer hours for the same – or less – pay, and yet still struggling to pay the bills. It is a tough time for everyone.

However, low-wage workers are being hurt the most. Not only are they dealing with long hours, low pay, and increasing food, housing, and health care expenses, but many are also being taken advantage of by their employers.

I am talking about wage theft. You may have read in the news about some recent lawsuits low-wage employees are bringing against their employers. Their complaints are many – including forced overtime, severe underpayment, and unfair wage cuts.

Unfortunately, these lawsuits are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (the law that sets a minimum wage and overtime pay). In fact, the number of cases filed regarding this act has exploded in recent years.

A recent national study of more than 4,000 low wage workers revealed that more than a quarter of workers are being paid less than the legally required minimum wage. Sixty percent of those workers are being underpaid by more than $1 an hour. Basically their employers are stealing money from them.

To be clear, the federal minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. That comes to $15,600 a year for employees working 40 hours a week. How people can live on that little money is amazing. When you take away $1 an hour, you bring down their annual income to $13,520 (a 14 percent reduction). Again, this is for someone working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Take a minute to think about how you would feel if your employer stole more than $2,000 a year from you.

In addition to being underpaid, the majority of low-wage workers in the survey are not being paid proper overtime, are not being given legal work breaks, and are not being provided the proper documentation of their pay.

While it may seem obvious to many people when they are being underpaid, low-wage workers are often dealing with other challenges – such as limited education, low literacy, and trouble with the language. When you add those factors together with the fact that more than half of the low-wage workers surveyed did not receive the mandatory documentation of their earnings, you begin to realize these low-wage workers are fighting an uphill battle.

One solution to this problem would be to make enforcement of wage and hour laws a higher priority. The Department of Labor is not staffed nearly enough to handle the regulation of all of the businesses in Maine. Without true enforcement of these laws, businesses will continue to skirt them and low-wage workers will continue to be underpaid.

In New York, an innovative program initiated by Patricia Smith, New York's Secretary of the Department of Labor and President Obama's nominee for Solicitor of the Labor Department, has recovered tens of millions of dollars from employers who have underpaid and misclassified workers. Smith then has used the money recovered to fund the positions of additional Labor Department inspectors.

Nov. 19 marks the National Day of Action against Wage Theft. Let's use that day as a starting point to try to protect our low-wage workers – the backbone of our society.

It is important for everyone in Maine to realize this situation does not just affect low-wage workers. People who work long hours for minimum wage are our neighbors. They are members of our community. They shop in our businesses. Their children go to our schools.

When they are struggling to make ends meet because their already low-paying job is basically stealing money from them, it reduces their ability to pay for necessities like food, housing, and health care. Our businesses are affected, our schools are affected, and our community is affected.

We cannot sit by and let businesses take advantage of some of the hardest working people in our state.

Businesses should take note and make sure they aren't underpaying their employees.

Legislators should look into the possibility of finding the funds to increase the enforcement of the wage and hour laws.

And we should all continue to think about ways we can help our neighbors in need during these trying times.