http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/mar/03/kansas_city_project_aims_help_hispanics_collect_un/Kansas City, Kan. — Jesus Perez was promised $20 an hour to pour concrete for a residential construction company.
But he said he has received nothing for the 160 hours he worked over a three-week period in September and October.
So recently, with the weather bad and construction jobs hard to find, Perez and two co-workers met with volunteers with the Kansas City Worker Justice Project, one of a growing number of nonprofit groups seeking to collect unpaid wages for immigrant workers.
Social service agencies report a rampant problem of wage theft in industries that employ large numbers of Hispanics. They say many undocumented Hispanics don’t protest when they aren’t paid because they fear deportation.
Further complicating the problem, experts say the federal government is spending less money enforcing wage and hour laws, leaving the burden to states and nonprofits, like the Kansas City Worker Justice Project.
The group started its once monthly clinics at El Centro, a Kansas City, Kan.-based social service agency, in September 2005. Last year, volunteers helped more than 100 low-wage workers collect about $6,000, said Raymundo Rojas, the group’s director.
Perez, 47, of Kansas City, Kan., is counting on the volunteers to help him collect at least some of the $3,200 he figures he is owed. So far, all he has to show for his efforts is a bounced check for $520.
Still, the bounced check was helpful. It included the name of the company and its address — details many workers are unable to provide.
Natalie Chalmers, a law student at Kansas University, spent part of her evening trying to help translate and fill out paperwork for a worker who knew his employer only by his first name: Scott.
“They usually don’t know what we need them to know,” she said.
FULL story at link.
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