Somerville activists seek to combat rampant wage theft

On November 30, 2019, in Latest News, by The Somerville Times

Jobs for Somerville member Mary Jo Connelly is one of many community activists seeking to establish an improved wage theft law in the city.

By Jane Regan
Somerville Neighborhood News

Somerville bosses have been quietly cheating employees out of tens of thousands of dollars for years now.

The state attorney general’s office has assessed employers based in, or working in, the city almost $230,000 in fines for various labor violations since January 2015. As of Nov. 1, most of them, including the Herb Chambers Companies, had not yet completely paid the penalties. Many are still in business, and it’s entirely possible that there are other deceitful employers who have not yet been caught.

But a coalition of labor groups, unions, the Our Revolution Somerville Labor Committee and other worker advocates are hoping to put an end to “wage theft,” includes instances where employers deny workers wages and benefits, such as a lunch break, tips, paid sick time, or when they force employees to work off the clock.

Rampant nationwide and in Somerville

The practice is rampant. A 2018 report from Jobs with Justice and Good Jobs First found that from 2000 to 2018, large employers were assessed $9.2 billion in penalties as a result of lawsuits or state or federal investigations.

Closer to home, the Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division dataset lists 21 violations by Somerville-based companies with assessments totaling almost $190,000 since January 2015. If two non-city based Assembly Square subcontractors are added in, the total jumps to almost $230,000.

All of the alleged violators agreed to civil proceedings and but not all have paid up, according to the data. The Herb Chambers Companies was assessed $116,758.48, but as of Nov. 1 had not yet “paid in full.” Nor had K.A.G Drywall ($12,405.43), which worked at Assembly Square, nor Terri’s Little Pumpkins ($12,954.76), a childcare center that used to be on Broadway. In fact, only ten of 23 fines listed as of Nov. 1 had been “paid in full.” (Those companies will be or have been subject to a tax lien, according to state law.)

Other employers assessed fines include Hawkeye Hospitality, owner of Davis Square’s Five Horse Tavern, which was found not to have paid its workers tips or legal minimum wage. Hawkeye did pay: a total of $17,264.08.

Fighting back with a new law?

Because the employers dealt with by the state likely represent only some of the many violators in and around the Boston area, a group of advocates and activists is hoping to confront the problem head on with changes to the city’s existing wage theft law, Ordinance 9-31. Representatives recently met at the library to discuss progress on the proposed changes and to consider whether establishing a workers center might also help.

Greater Boston Legal Services Ben Traslavina told the October 28 gathering that Somerville’s current wage theft law is ineffectual.

“It only comes into effect if a company has been found to have criminally violated the law,” he explained. “As all of you know, prosecutions, criminal prosecutions of wage theft, are almost non-existent. It’s on the books but it’s a dead letter.”

Traslavina, who has been helping craft the language that would essentially replace the existing ordinance, noted that while it’s difficult to prosecute employers, cities and towns have power.

“We do have, as a municipality, the power to decide what businesses can work in our community,” he noted.

The proposed new ordinance – currently being considered by the Licenses and Permits committee – would give city agencies the power the deny abusive employers building permits, licenses and even contracts. It also calls for an advisory committee that would include representatives of a number of city-based advocacy organizations.

Councilor-at-large Wilfred Mbah, vice president of the committee, said members hope it will become law by the end of the year.

“We are hoping to vote it out of committee on Wednesday, December 11, and adopt it into law at our last Council meeting of the year on Thursday, December 12,” he said in an email dated November 11.

A workers center?

Many of the advocates at the Octber 28 meeting also said they would also like to set up a workers center.

“There’s a lot of amazing work already in the community,” acknowledged Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH), but she added that workers need “a safe space.”

Before it moved, the immigrant advocacy group Centro Presente helped many of the city’s laborers, including those being cheated by the Diva Indian Bistro in Davis Square. In 2012, the agency helped workers sue owner One World Cuisine for $183,000 and helped organize weekly pickets for a year.

Mary Jo Connelly, active with Jobs for Somerville and other groups, and who attended the October 28 meeting, remembered the weekly marches.

“Every Friday there was a crowd of people and I was one of them, sometimes my kids were with me, saying: ‘Don’t eat at Diva!’” she said during an interview in Davis Square.

The company eventually settled out of court.

More recently, Somerville workers have had to find help outside the city, according to MassCOSH’s Milagros Barreto.

“We’ve been helping workers from Somerville for many years now,” said Barreto, whose office is in Dorchester.

Goldstein-Gelb and others, including the ORS Labor Committee, are hoping a center can be funded, at least in part, using monies from the Job Creation and Retention Trust Fund, created by assessing commercial developers of sites over 15,000 square feet a fee.

Go to https://www.somervillemedia.org/snn/ for more news in and around our community on Somerville Neighborhood News.

 

4 Responses to “Somerville activists seek to combat rampant wage theft”

  1. ritepride says:

    I agree that a new law protecting the workers is needed. Back in the late 90’s a company baed in MA with 2 subsidiary divisions informed the MA
    Employees the 2 MA divisions were being closed. I inquired about severance and vacation monies due to employees. We were told letters would be sent.The locks were changed the Friday & 1 week later no letters with any info just a check for the previous week pay. I calledthe headquarters in ME, no anwers just somebody would get back. So I called MA Secy of State, Bill Galvin and told them what happened. 1 week later thanks to Bill Galvin I received 3 weeks severance & 4 weeks vacation pay.

  2. UnionGuy says:

    “Many are still in business…” … but a lot of them aren’t now are they? Good work shuttering down some small, local businesses. Most of these “disputes” are a disgruntled employee trying to shake down the employer. They all end up in civil because it’s about the cash in the first place. Most employers figure it’s easier to just pay-off the malcontents rather than pay attorneys to fight it. That’s the bottom line. None of these “fines” are a drop in the bucket for most… well except for Diva and a few others that went under because of their efforts. So now no one is getting paid at some of these businesses as they’re shuttered. Who wins? One bad apple can take down a small business – that’s what happens many times.

    Really the question is: do we really need more “activists” poking their elitist-noses into situations they have no clue about? I am thinking not one person listed in this article has ever been an employer and most have never had a real job. They’re for the most part trust-funders grifting thru life and living off the rest of us by telling us how to live. Patting each other on the backs while sipping Chablis and munching on Brie. They’re parasites on our society.

    The best part is that these know-it-alls now want to create a “workers center” and I am sure list it as a 501(c)(3), hire themselves to manage it and then go grab a bunch of federal/state grants to fund it and – most importantly – fund their greedy little pockets. I give them credit as just when you think there can’t possibly be another scam non-profit idea out there – here it is!

    And Will Mbah? LOL. Love the guy, but has he figured out where the head is in the BOA chamber yet? Last meeting I attended Will had the “I’m all lost in the supermarket” look going. It was comical.

  3. Casimir H. Prohosky Jr. says:

    What a hokey load of right wing babble. “Elitists” LMAO! Back in the bus, grandpa. The rest of us are passing through.

  4. Somerbreeze says:

    @ UnionGuy – And you call yourself “UnionGuy?”

    What an ironic moniker! And spouting wildly-misinformed right-wing garbage in a Trumpian vein.

    Trump’s corporate cohorts are notorious union busters.

    And many of the activists fighting for a real wage-theft ordinance are union members themselves. And just about all of them work for a living.

    From a union guy for forty years.