Groups Try to Protect Low-Wage Workers

It’s perhaps the most ubiquitous crime in this boom town: the daily exploitation of migrant workers who toil in restaurants, hotels and construction sites.

An untold number of them, authorities say, are denied the basic protections of federal and state labor laws on minimum wage, work breaks and job safety.

Teenagers illegally operate meat slicers in mom-and-pop delicatessens. Maids are denied their 10-minute breaks while readying rooms for the next wave of tourists. And legions of young construction workers are hired by subcontractors to frame homes, lay roof tile and hang wallboard at $3 or $4 an hour.

Labor experts say very few of them complain--either because they’re afraid to, don’t know where to turn for help or don’t even realize their pay or work conditions violate labor laws.

That may now change, thanks to an unusual coalition of government, labor union and church officials who have joined to create an outreach program to protect the interests of low-wage earners.

The campaign was launched last week with the opening of the Workers Rights Center, under the auspices of the Las Vegas Interfaith Council for Worker Justice.

Tucked away in a small office next to an Episcopal church, it has a staff of only two but is supported by some of Las Vegas’ largest labor unions, churches and the federal government itself.

The strategy: Get the word out to low-wage workers--most of them immigrants--that if they’re being treated unfairly by their bosses, they now have somewhere to go with their complaints without feeling intimidated.

Ultimately, their charges will be forwarded to the U.S. Department of Labor for action. The rights center serves a necessary intermediary role because too many workers are afraid to approach the government for help, said center director Mark C. Stotik, a veteran of the Peace Corps and various legal aid programs for farm workers.

“A lot of these workers are undocumented, and are afraid of being reported to the INS,” he said. “The Labor Department people we’re working with have promised they won’t do that, but the workers are still afraid of going to them directly.”

Labor Department officials herald the interfaith church project, one of several they’ve joined across the country to stem the exploitation of migrant workers. The government-interfaith church project was conceived two years ago in Chicago.

“This is a nontraditional partnership, but we need to find new and more effective ways to reach out to low-wage workers who are reluctant or unable to come to our offices,” said Pam Yerger, a regional director of the Labor Department’s wage and hour division.

“These workers are being drawn to Las Vegas by the expanding economy. They’re moving from agriculture to the construction, service and restaurant jobs here. And they’re being exploited,” she said.

The workers--many of whom don’t speak English--”don’t know who we are, or don’t know how to find us--or don’t want to come to a government office to complain, because they’re undocumented,” Yerger said. “But we hope they’ll come to this [church] center, which has contacts in the community, and which will then be a conduit in bringing the complaints to us.”

And the complaints are many, according to the local Culinary, Carpenters and United Food and Commercial Workers unions, which are helping underwrite the $100,000 annual cost of the program.

$3 or $4 an Hour Is ‘Standard Practice’

Typical of the problem, said one union official, is the subcontractor on a residential construction site who pays his day laborers less than $5.15 an hour--the federal and Nevada minimum wage.

Paying just $3 or $4 an hour “is the standard practice in residential construction around here,” said Jim Sala of the Southern California-Nevada Regional Council of Carpenters. “The subcontractors are hiring young guys who don’t have any experience--but who have a work ethic, and don’t complain because they need the money. They know that when they get more experienced, they can get jobs on commercial or industrial construction sites and make more money.”

But in the meantime, Sala said, they’re getting a raw deal. “We had four guys show up in our union hall the other day, complaining they weren’t paid at all at the end of their job, and they didn’t know where else to go.”

Now, through the union halls, the interfaith council’s member churches, pamphlets and word-of-mouth within the migrant worker community, Stotik hopes workers will come forth with their complaints, so they can be channeled to Labor Department investigators.

Migrant worker advocacy organizations are common, but few coordinate their mission directly with the Labor Department.

Among the more powerful ones is California Rural Legal Assistance. Its director, Claudia Smith, said her staff takes workers’ complaints directly to the employers, rather than to state or federal labor officials, because results come more quickly.

Stotik acknowledges that a cumbersome bureaucracy may be slow to respond to workers’ complaints, “but one of our roles will be to monitor each case through resolution.”

The success of the Worker Rights Center, Stotik said, will be measured over years, as word of its existence is spread through the migrant worker community and, ultimately, employers realize their workers may complain about them.

“With a lot of time and effort,” he said, “we can do something about this problem.”