Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 9781595587176
Price: $20.50 CAD
Publication Date: Nov 2011
Rights: Canada
Pages: 336

Examination Copy

Professors/Instructors in Canada: We will provide examination copies of our books for consideration as course texts. We do reserve the right to limit examination copy requests and/or to provide books on a pre-payment or approval basis.

Request Exam Copy

Wage Theft in America

Why Millions of Working Americans are Not Being Paid – And What We Can Do About It

Kim Bobo

In what has been described as “the crime wave no one talks about,” billions of dollars worth of wages are stolen from millions of workers in the United States every year— a grand theft that exceeds every other larceny category. Even the Economic Policy Foundation, a business-funded think tank, has estimated that companies annually steal an incredible $19 billion in unpaid overtime. The scope of these abuses is staggering, but activists, unions, and policymakers—along with everyday Americans in congregations and towns across the country—have begun to take notice.

While the first edition of Wage Theft in America documented the scope of the problem, this new edition adds the latest research on wage theft and tells what community, religious, and labor activists are now doing to address the crisis—from passing state and local wage-theft bills to establishing mayoral task forces and tapping agencies that help low-wage workers in spotting wage theft. Offering a sweeping analysis of the crisis, citing hard-hitting statistics and heartbreaking first-person accounts of exploitation at the hands of employers, this new and updated edition of Wage Theft in America offers concrete solutions and a road map for putting an end to this insidious practice.

· Acknowledgments

· Introduction

Part I: Wage Theft

1. The Crisis of Wage Theft

2. How Employers Steal Wages

3. Payroll Fraud

4. Why Employers Steal Wages

5. How U.S. Labor Laws Fail Workers

Part II: Vehicles for Stopping Wage Theft

6. Organizing to Stop Wage Theft: Why Unions Matter

7. Workers’ Centers: Front Lines against Wage Theft

8. Business Leaders Challenge Wage Theft

Part III: Strengthening Enforcement

9. Leadership Matters: Lessons from Frances Perkins 1

10. The U.S. Department of Labor: More Important Than Ever

11. Strengthening State Enforcement

12. Strengthening Local Enforcement

Part IV: What You Can Do to Stop Wage Theft

13. Stopping Wage Theft Is Good for America

14. You Can Make a Difference

Appendices: Additional Resources

· Appendix A: Department of Labor Wage and Hour Settlements

· Appendix B: Private Wage and Hour Lawsuits

· Appendix C: Catholic Labor Schools

· Appendix D: Workers’ Centers and Legal Clinics

· Appendix E: Faith Body Positions on Wages and Working Conditions

· Appendix F: National Organizations Fighting Wage Theft

· Appendix G: Congregational Study Guide for Wage Theft in America

· Notes

About the Author

Kim Bobo is the founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice and a columnist for Religion Dispatches (www.religiondispatches.org). She is the author of Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian Organizing and the co-author (with Jackie Kendall and Steve Max) of Organizing for Social Change, the most widely used manual on progressive activism in the country. She lives in Chicago.

Find Books:

Brunswick Books is the new name of Fernwood Books. For over 35 years we have been providing books from independent and progressive publishers.

Examination Copy

Wage Theft in America

Why Millions of Working Americans are Not Being Paid – And What We Can Do About It

Kim Bobo

Contents

About the Author