Wage Theft is a Crime Rally Delivers Results

Last week, WIN members showed once again that you are powerful when we stand together against injustice! More than 40 people rallied at the Shelby County Courthouse, calling on Sheriff Luttrell and District Attorney Gibbons to treat wage theft as a crime.

Jose Leon and Bill Bright of the District Attorney's Office receive more than 1,200 petition signatures on wage theft that you helped collect.

The rally delivered results: Sheriff Luttrell called the day before the rally and agreed to contact Attorney Gibbons to request a joint meeting with WIN to discuss our proposal to criminalize wage theft. At the rally, attorneys Bill Bright and Jose Leon of the District Attorney's office came out to meet the crowd and receive over 1,200 petition signatures that you helped collect. They also indicated they are willing to meet with WIN to discuss our wage theft proposal.

We will keep you posted about developments in the campaign.

Be sure to attend our Sheriff Candidate forum on Thursday, April 29th to make sure that no matter who our next Sheriff is, wage theft is on his agenda! The forum will be held at 6:30 p.m. at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, located at 692 Poplar Ave.

The non-partisan forum is open to all candidates for Shelby County Sheriff and all community members. Workers and community members will talk about the crisis of wage theft, and ask candidates for Sheriff how they will address the crisis if elected.

Even if Sheriff Luttrell develops a policy to treat wage theft as a crime before he leaves office, the next Sheriff's actions will determine whether or not the policy is enforced. Show Sheriff candidates just how important this issue is to the community by attending the candidate forum!

View press coverage of last week's rally: A story in The Commercial Appeal and a guest column on wage theft by WIN board member Erika Eubanks.

Learn more about the Wage Theft is a Crime campaign

Lessons from the Sanitation Strike - 42 Years Later

April 4th marks the 42nd anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assasination in Memphis while supporting the Memphis sanitation workers' strike. The incredible sacrifice that Dr. King made with his life, that workers made with their livelihoods, and that community supporters made with their money, time, and reputations offer us many lessons today in the fight for social justice:

1) Workers who have been pushed to the limit will eventually push back. Some might have thought that the sanitation workers were so oppressed and had so few options for work that they wouldn't dare to form a union. In fact, strike leader T.O. Jones had tried unsuccessfully several times to organize his co-workers before the 1968 strike. But the deaths of workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker, crushed to death by compactors in their sanitation truck on February 1st, caused 1300 sanitation workers to walk off the job ten days later. Workers had had enough, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) were soon scrambling to follow the workers' lead, as were community supporters. The sanitation workers remind us that we should never write off a group of workers as too afraid, too poor, or too oppressed to stand up for their rights.

2) Workers must take the lead, but they can't do it alone. Without the thousands of Black clergy and laity, civil rights activists both local and national, and the small numbers of white people of faith who supported the strike, workers would have been hard pressed to win the strike. Faith and community leaders organized collections that kept sanitation workers from losing their homes while surviving on strike pay, and that filled pickets lines and mass marches that forced the City to eventually recognize the union. Listen to these individual stories from NPR's StoryCorps to get a picture of how the African-American community came together to support the sanitation workers. Workers today make often heroic struggles to win union representation, fair wages, and decent treatment. Having allies in the community who will stand with them often means the difference between a victory or a loss in these struggles.

3) In the words of Dr. King, "Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice." Many of his close allies urged Dr. King not to get involved with the Memphis strike, considering it a distraction from more traditional civil rights work. Workers faced tremendous pressure to go back on the job as the strike dragged on for more than two months. Courageous civil rights leaders, clergy, and community leaders who spoke out were mocked and threatened by sources ranging from the media to the Mayor. Yet without the sacrifice of all these people, the sanitation strke wouldn't have been won. Today, all city and county workers who have union representation in Memphis can thank the sanitation workers and those who stood with them.

Watch the beginning of At the River I Stand, a documentary of the sanitation workers' strike.

Video of Memphis workers marching for immigration reform

I am so inspired by all the workers, students, and activitsts from Tennessee - 500 of them in all - who travelled to DC this past weekend to march for immigration reform. Parents travelled with their children to push for reform because they've worked hard, paid taxes, and built a life in the United States. They want and need a path to citizenship.

Our modest video from this weekend doesn't give you the true picture of just how many people marched for reform. There were between 150,000 - 200,000 people who stood up and made their voices heard.

Why WIN is Joining the March for America

Today, I'm holding down the fort here in Memphis while two of my co-workers and nine workers from WIN's Workers' Center travel to Washington, DC for the March for America. About 100,000 people are expected to take part in this march for comprehensive immigration reform. Why do we think that now is the time for immigration reform?

1) Our diverse faith traditions call on us to love the immigrant and seek justice for all people. The Hebrew scriptures caution us to "not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for  you were aliens in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9) My own Christian tradition directs me to welcome the "stranger" (a term that specifically refers to immigrants) as if he or she is Jesus himself (Matthew 25:35). Islam also teaches that God desires justice, including for those who are refugees or strangers. The day after the march a high level delegation of religious leaders will be meeting with the White House to share these messages and press for immigration reform.

2) Families are being torn apart. I can't imagine what it would be like to live in fear that my child could be taken from me at any moment. Or what's it's like to have to work in another country without your family, just so they can survive. But thousands of immigrant families live with these fears and these realities every day.

Our broken immigration system makes it very difficult for many immigrant workers to reunite with their families. The agony of family separation discourages people from working within the current immigration system. (If you have questions about why people don't "wait in line" to get a visa under the current U.S. immigration system, check out this easy to understand chart by Reason magazine that shows how long it takes to become a citizen depending on your immigration situation.)

The number of deportations during President Obama's first year is higher than in previous years. As Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine points out, this means more broken lives. "That is not what we meant by change," Wallis writes, and I agree.

3) Workers' rights are being eroded. Every day at Workers Interfaith Network, we see the ways that employers take advantage of undocumented workers by paying them below minimum wage and intimidating immigrants who try to form unions. Many immigrant workers want to organize for better working conditions and pay, but they have to balance that desire with the fear of deportation. When employers can hire immigrant workers for low wages and bad working conditions, it hurts all workers. Immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for immigrant workers already working and paying taxes in the U.S. would level the playing field for all workers.

Help WIN deliver hundreds of wage theft petitions to Luttrell and Gibbons

Mark your calendars for Thursday April 8th and plan to join Workers Interfaith Network at noon at the Shelby County Courthouse. We'll be rallying at the courthouse (140 Adams Ave). to tell Shelby County law enforcement that wage theft is a crime!

More than 1,000 of you have now signed printed and electronic petitions to Sheriff Mark Luttrell and District Attorney Bill Gibbons, calling on them to recognize wage theft as a crime. Now it's time to deliver those petitions and tell these elected officials that workers whose wages are being stolen cannot wait.

Some of you who signed the electronic petition may have gotten a response back from the Sheriff's office that implied a new law would need to be passed it order to treat wage theft as a criminal offense. This is incorrect. Like other communities across the country like Austin, Texas, Shelby County could use our state's Theft of Services law to charge employers who hire workers and then never pay them for their labor.

WIN has also posted answers to a few other frequently asked questions about the Wage Theft is a Crime campaign on our website.

Hope to see you on April 8th! And if you haven't signed the petition yet, there's still time left.

Wage Theft At El Patron Restaurant

Your action is needed to help worker Jorge Panuco recover his stolen wages. Mr. Panuco worked as a waiter at El Patron Restaurant in Southaven for more than a year. He never received any pay besides his customers' tips.

The restaurant owes him $16,150 in unpaid minimum wages and overtime. That's an enormous amount of wages to have stolen from just one worker! Wage theft in restaurants is all too common. Investigations by the U.S Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division of restaurants in eleven cities found that between 30 - 78 percent of restaurants in each city were breaking wage and hour laws.

The owner of the restaurant has not responded to WIN's attempts to negotiate. It's now time to alert El Patron's customers about wage theft at the restaurant. Please join us:

Picket at El Patron Restaurant
Friday, February 19th
11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
920 Main St., Southaven, MS

We will be passing out leaflets to El Patron customers alerting them to wage theft at the restaurant. The last time we passed out leaflets at a restaurant about wage theft, the worker was paid on the spot! Even if you cannot stay the whole time, please stop by for a half hour to help.

Let us know if you can join us!

Wage Theft is a Crime: Sign the Petition

Each year, thousands of workers in Shelby County, and millions of workers across the country, are victims of wage theft. Too many employers break the law by not paying workers for hours, days, or even weeks' worth of labor that they've already performed.

It's time to bring the crime of wage theft out of the shadows and into the light of day. A hard day's work should equal a fair day's pay.

That's why Workers Interfaith Network is pressing Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell and District Attorney Bill Gibbons to do their part to stop wage theft. Right now, if workers don't get paid, in most cases all they can do is file a complaint with a government agency, or pay a lawyer to represent them in court. This process can take months or even years, and most workers who experience wage theft don't have money for a lawyer.

But Sheriff Luttrell and Attorney Gibbons can help stop this problem. They can use an existing state law, the Tennessee Theft of Services Act, to recognize wage theft as a crime. This would mean workers could file criminal charges against employers who refuse to pay them for their work.

WIN has presented a proposal to the Sheriff's Department, which they expressed interest in. However, we have not been able to obtain a second meeting to move forward on the proposal. You can push Sheriff Luttrell and Attorney Gibbons to act on this important matter by signing our online petition to them at http://www.change.org/actions/view/wage_theft_is_a_crime_stop_wage_theft_in_shelby_county

If you're not signed up for WIN's email list yet, do it today. You'll get updates and action alerts on the wage theft is a crime campaign. Plus, this month all new email subscriptions are being entered into a drawing for a free $20 gift card to powells.com, an excellent worker-friendly book store. Sign up for email alerts at http://www.workersinterfaithnetwork.org/index/involved/subscribe.htm