[Marxism] Wage Watchers

[sabocat59@xxxxxxx]

New York Times, 2/13/2009 
WAGE WATCHERS 
 
Most businesses try to compete by being efficient and smart. Some do it the 
nasty way. They undercut their competitors by hiring and exploiting low-wage 
workers. Recent years have been especially good for this repellent 
bottom-feeding thanks to weak and indifferent government enforcement of 
workers’ rights and a darkening political climate against illegal immigrants -- 
the backbone of the cheap, disposable work force. 
Bad employers confidently cut corners, steal wages and ignore overtime and 
workplace safety laws because they know that governments at all levels are 
unable or unwilling to investigate and workers are too frightened to complain. 
But here is a heartening sign of change: New York State has begun a new effort 
to expose and prosecute abusive employers by enlisting the people who know them 
best; their immigrant employees. 
Last weekend, the State Labor Department began a pilot partnership with six 
nonprofit workers’ organizations, whose members will be the government’s eyes 
and ears in the abuse-prone immigrant workplace. 
In New York City and on Long Island, workers at day-labor corners, laundries, 
restaurants, nail salons, supermarkets and department stores will be trained to 
know and defend their rights and be given contracts in the Division of Labor 
Standards to report violations. 
All sides of the immigration debate should be able to agree that this sort of 
program, one of the first in the nation, is wise and overdue. For too long, at 
too many levels of government, efforts to help immigrant workers have been 
thwarted by the poison politics of immigration. 
Blame the tag “illegal” for clouding people’s understanding of immigrants’ 
rights. Attacking illegal immigration through enforcement alone -- piling 
hopelessness onto fear -- will never make 12 million people disappear. It will 
make them silent partners in a system that forces honest Americans and 
businesses to suffer with them. 
You don’t need a bleeding heart to apprehend the tragedy of worker 
exploitation. A cold eye will do, calculating the cost to honest businesses and 
workers when bad employers pocket the wages of fear and desperation.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu