Theft is a serious crime. Our state is apparently pretty serious and it apparently means business, too. That is, Florida seems serious about meting out jail time (punishment) to “bad guys” and restitution (compensation) to “good guys” – unless, it seems, you are an employee seeking just compensation from an employer who “forgets” to pay you your wage – sorry, you’re just not “good” enough. Given recent events, it’s becoming increasingly difficult not to believe that we live in a state in which corporate-dominated legislators care more about sipping champagne than ensuring that our workers have enough money to buy groceries. Apparently, some legislators would like us to believe that a big bad wolf called “statewide wage theft prevention” is about to be let loose onto our streets. But before you believe that, consider one question: Is statewide wage theft prevention, a tool to prevent injustice, really a wolf whose chief objective is to menace our minds with confusion? The last time we checked the wolf is rapacious, not a noble protector of justice.
Just last week, we got a taste of obstructionists’ passion for what they call “order,” when they moved to pass a bill that would crackdown on counties and cities by disabling them from passing ordinances that would help disenfranchised workers recover unpaid wages from their employers. Unfortunately this passion for “order” along with support from super-rich best buddies (including the Florida Retail Federation and the Associated Builders and Contractors) was enough to get the bill passed in the House Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee last week, raising a concern that statewide protection against wage theft may ruefully, once again, be put on the back-burner.
In their quest to preserve “order” and “justice” and other fine-sounding words, obstructionists (big businesses and corporate-aligned politicians) argued that they were merely trying to avoid creating a confusing “patchwork” of 67 counties with 67 conflicting laws. Their argument seems to boil down to: “we’re just trying to get rid of the confusion” and “we’ve already got federal & state protections for everyone, so why go local or statewide?” But the problem with these boiled down arguments is not only that they don’t make sense but that they are nonsensical in the most callous and specious sort of way.
Jose Rodriguez, a former staff attorney for Florida Legal Services, rebutted the idea that our existing worker protections are sufficient, stating: “Federal and state minimum wages – both, even if properly enforced, leave large segments of the working population unprotected. Federal wage and hour laws only apply to either contractors doing business with the federal government or to industries employing farm labor.” In other words, we don’t have enough protections because, simply put, not everyone is covered by existing protections! What’s more, Jeanette Smith (a registered Republican and advocate for common sense) stated that statewide wage theft prevention law would prevent, not create, the very “patchwork,” that some legislators fear. What’s confusing is not the so-called “patchwork” but why we never had these sort of wage-theft prevention protections in the first place.
Wage theft is a serious issue – so serious that, as AFL-CIO recently mentioned, it poses a “$28 million dollar problem” in our state. (In Miami-Dade’s program, mediators have recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages). The message that many legislators are sending by trying to seize local control is that no one is left off the hook, unless you’re a big business, and that bowing to wealthy interests is more important than requiring that they pay their fair share and, at minimum, pay their workers on time.
A recent Miami Herald Editorial made a simple case: “It’s simple, work and get paid.” Wage theft is a problem all over the state of Florida; our existing protections are not enough, so we need to pass legislation to ensure protection for ALL Floridians. Cracking down on cities and preventing them from protecting their own workers is not only outrageous but bad for the economy – the more you delay payment to workers, the less likely they will be able to pour their earned dollars back into the economy.
The real big bad wolves are the obstructionists who oppose statewide wage theft prevention. If we wish to live in a more prosperous state, a state that upholds the dignity of workers and provides basic protections that ensure that the wages folks worked for are received in a timely manner, then we need to advance protections such as wage theft prevention statewide, so all Floridians are protected. As Floridians continue to face more and more cuts, as the promise of precious worker protections continues to dangle precariously in the crosshairs of wealthy interests, we need to become more educated about the real threats that exist and respond to them with people power!
you misused the word ‘ruefully’