Fight Wage Theft with US (Comites de Justicia below)!
What is Wage Theft?
Wage theft is the illegal practice of employers not paying workers for all of their work. This includes non-payment, partial payment, wages below the minimum wage, unpaid overtime hours or worker misclassification. Wage theft violates the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Virginia Payment of Wage Law.
Who is affected by wage theft?
Wage theft can occur at any job site to anyone; Native, US born, and immigrant workers alike are vulnerable to wage theft. The impact of wage theft affects not only the individual, but households, small businesses, employers who pay workers fairly, and the economy as a whole.
Goals
CIF seeks to bring an end to wage theft. But how do we plan to do that?
- Our #EndWageTheft Campaign is a community-wide campaign that focuses on building power among worker leaders, promotes solidarity with the laborer community, and aims to bring visibility to this crime through uplifting the voice and stories of the community.
- We advocate for protections and opportunities for recovery through legislation, outreach, and movements.
- We support workers in their individual cases of wage theft, with the intention of recovering lost wages. Staff and volunteers: facilitate negotiations between workers and employers, assist workers getting connected to legal resources, and pursuing cases in small claims court, help report incidents to local and federal labor agencies, and develop alternative methods to collect unpaid wages.
Work with us to build a coalition between the worker community, small business owners, local officials, and local authorities. To Educate the community of Centreville about the negative and far-reaching impacts of wage theft, through flyers, public forums, and workers’ rights workshops.
Approach
CIF builds worker power through organizing. Workers lead recovery efforts and guide teams that support individual recovery efforts. Recovery practices are based on restorative principles and aim to address harm.
Join a Comite de Justicia!
Comités de Justicia are groups of volunteers that will meet to support our members through work on active Wage Theft cases. These are cases where an employer has not paid the worker for their work. Bilingual Spanish-English volunteers preferred but not required!
Commitment:
- Minimum 1/week meet during active cases for 30 mins-1hr, may be more depending on steps needed to be taken on the case
- Twice per month check-ins, estimated 1 hour
- Once per 6 months or as needed, 1-2 hours for training, feedback, and refreshers.
- Additional as needed
What will it entail?
- Speaking with members
- Speaking with employers
- Outreach to other workers who may have experienced WT with the same employer
- Research on the employers
- Physical visits to some employers
- Drafting and delivering demand letters when necessary
- Strategizing forms of pressure for payment
If you are interested in volunteering with one of these groups, please fill out this form. If you have questions or would like to discuss anything before filling out our interest form, feel free to email austyn@thecifva.org.