Chicago’s Widespread Wage Theft Epidemic

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Chicago’s Widespread Wage Theft Epidemic
Wednesday
April 7
6:21 pm

$7.3 million stolen from workers each week in city and its county alone, new study says

By David Moberg


When he found out what his boss had done to him, Bill Van Dusen says he felt "violated." At the same time, the boss violated something else–the law.

Over the past two years, as the owners of Duraco Products–a suburban Chicago maker of plastic garden products–let their company slide towards its current bankruptcy, they frequently failed to pay their workers their full wages, always with some excuse about banks or other problems. And unbeknown to Van Dusen and others, the company was pocketing paycheck deductions for health insurance or child support.

Van Dusen, a lean 61-year old programmer with wavy white hair, discovered the owners' fraud on deductions. He needed care for a medical problem earlier this year, realized he had no insurance, and quit the job, but he now owes $20,000 in medical bills. He's also out $33,000 in pay he never received, and having spent the college fund for his children on everyday bills while waiting for his back pay, he now will have to use his retirement savings for their college.

Van Dusen is an unusual victim of wage theft. He's better paid, better educated and working a job not typical of workers whose bosses robbed them of money legally owed to them. But wage theft itself is quite common, especially among lower-wage workers, as shown by a new study of the Chicago labor market prepared by Nik Theodore and others for the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It is, like reports on Los Angeles and New York, a by-product of a collaborative national study of wage theft. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5800/chicagos_widespread_wage_theft_epidemic/

[RedRocco]

1. child support?

wonder if any Dads got jailed?