Testimony, HB
1296, House Judiciary Committee
February 28,
2012
Good
afternoon. My name is Rev. Anne
Dunlap. I’m a United Church of Christ
minister and pastor of Liberation Community in Aurora.
I
am testifying today in support of HB 1296, the Income Protection Act, because half
of the members of my church are low-wage workers who have experienced wage
theft themselves, every one of them, and multiple times. I have witnessed with them the suffering that
wage theft causes to them and their families, and to our community. I have also witnessed with them the near
impossibility of recovering their stolen wages from unethical employers.
In
November, one of our members worked for two solid weeks laying marble floors
for several bank buildings in the Denver metro area. He was promised $1000 for his work. He was never paid.
Just
a few weeks ago, one of our members shared with us that because her hours had
been cut at her regular job, she took on a second job at a bakery. She worked 60 hours at the bakery in one
week, for 7 dollars an hour, but when she got her paycheck, she was only paid
for 40 hours. This is a woman trying to
support her family, including her very ill father whose care depends on the
income she provides, and she was robbed of 20 hours of her hard work.
We
asked if we could connect her with a lawyer, with a wage theft clinic, anything
to help try to recover her stolen wages, but she just shook her head. “It’s not worth it,” she said, “It won’t work.”
And
essentially she is right. My church participates
in the wage theft task force in part to help us know better what recourse there
is for fighting wage theft. We have
tried multiple ways to help workers in our congregation recover their
wages. We have tried lawyers, reporting
wage thefts to the state Department of Labor, wage theft clinics, talking to
police, small claims court, calling the employers ourselves, and even, once,
going to an employer’s home with a politely worded letter asking him to do the
right thing. That visit only resulted in
threatening phone calls to myself and to the worker.
None
of these efforts resulted in our folks being paid. The fact is, even if a case is won in court,
recovering stolen wages can still be nearly impossible. HB1296 is the opportunity to change that, by
increasing enforcement and raising penalties against unethical employers.
By
voting for the Income Protection Act, you have the opportunity to make a huge
difference in the life of workers whose wages are stolen. You have the chance to stop suffering. Our members struggle to pay the rent, to eat,
to provide for their basic needs and the needs of their families when their
wages are stolen. They suffer, and their
families suffer, and our community suffers.
Wage
theft is not a “boutique crime.” Wage
theft is a crisis that affects millions of workers in the US across all kinds
of companies, not just low wage jobs.
Interfaith Worker Justice director Kim Bobo outlines the staggering
number of violations in her book, “Wage Theft in America.” She notes that one study estimated that
companies in the U.S. annually steal $19 BILLION just in unpaid overtime.
In
my tradition, our sacred text teaches us what builds a healthy, strong
community, and those teachings include not only the general “Thou Shalt Not
Steal” but also paying your workers every day – in Leviticus (19:13), you are not
even supposed to keep a worker’s wages until the next morning! Deuteronomy (24:14-15) is even more precise: “You shall not withhold the wages of poor and
needy laborers…You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they
are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the
LORD against you, and you would incur guilt.”
As
a person of faith, and as a clergywoman who believes in the dignity of each
human being, and in the dignity of work and workers, I urge you to pass HB1296,
and protect the dignity and livelihood of workers in Colorado. Thank you.
