Thousands of people in more than 30 cities today will participate in a variety of creative nonviolent actions for the National Day of Action Against Wage Theft. As Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), the organization behind this campaign, explained in a press release:
In Houston, a worker center will release a local report on wage theft and will send a “Justice Bus” around the city to call attention to local businesses that steal their workers’ wages. Other innovative local events include a text messaging campaign, a “Worst Employers” Awards ceremony, “Know Your Rights” workshops for workers, a jazz funeral for lost wages and a Thanksgiving-themed auction and a dramatization against wage theft in Memphis.
Wage theft can mean many things, as Kim Bobo, the director of Interfaith Worker Justice, explains in this informative video, including when workers are, “not paid minimum wage, not paid overtime, misclassified as independent contractors, [when] they don’t get all their tips, they get laid off and they don’t get their last paycheck, or for some workers they work all day and they don’t get paid at all.”
To see if there is an event that you can attend in your area, many of which are planned for this afternoon or evening, click here for a list of actions around the country. You can also sign this petition to help stop wage theft.
For more info on wage theft, check out our post on last year’s day of action! http://dev2.wagingnonviolence.org/2009/11/wage-theft-the-forgotten-crime-wave/