Then, last week, after finding the company and its owners to be in contempt for not paying the damages as ordered in the 2007 ruling, a federal judge smacked the cleaning company with another $277,791 in post-judgment interest, calculated at 4.44 percent from the original summary judgment’s date. Additionally, the judge ordered fines of $2,000 per day against the cleaning company and $200 each per day against Maldonado and Rubio for every day the back wages aren’t paid in full.

A district office of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in West Covina, Cal., first heard complaints about the way the cleaning company treated its employees when it took part in the Employment Education and Outreach (EMPLEO) – a coalition of private organizations and government agencies that helps Hispanic workers and employers with labor issues and concerns.

An investigation by the DOL turned up multiple minimum wage and overtime violations. Additionally, company managers did not keep accurate records of employee hours worked.

“The Department of Labor will not hesitate to take action to ensure workers receive the compensation they have worked hard for and earned,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement last Thursday.

Solis, who was born in California to immigrant working class parents from Nicaragua and Mexico, was named as the Plaintiff in the case, filed in July 2006 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Speaking at the Forum of the Workers of the Americas in Trinidad, Solis suggested her agency would finally be able to ramp up its investigations of companies that treat their employees unfairly and illegally.

Solis served eight years in Congress during the Bush Administration before President Obama nominated her as Labor Secretary. She told the assembly in Trinidad that she had battled injustice for too long. “For eight years I have struggled under hardship in an administration that was not for, in my opinion, putting people – working class people – first. That did not put education first,” Solis said.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › California maid company fined for ignoring 2007 ruling

“As corporate budgets continue to tighten, more employers are looking to classify workers as independent contractors in an effort to reduce costs, such as overtime compensation, employee benefits, payroll taxes, unemployment compensation, and workers compensation,” the plaintiff’s attorney said. “The law is clear, however, that many of these workers do not qualify as independent contractors.”

A number of cases involving disputes over independent contractor classification have made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has maintained there is no single test to determine the proper classification of a worker as an employee or independent contractor under FLSA regulations. “The total activity or situation” must be considered.

To determine the legal classification of a worker as an employee or independent contractor, the following factors must be considered:

• The extent to which the services rendered are an integral part of the principal’s business
• The permanency of the relationship
• The amount of the alleged contractor’s investment in facilities and equipment
• The nature and degree of control by the principal
• The alleged contractor’s opportunities for profit and loss
• The amount of initiative, judgment, or foresight in open market competition with others required for the success of the claimed independent contractor
• The degree of independent business organization and operation

A bill called the “Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act of 2007” was proposed to Congress but never became law.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Will the great recession mean more FLSA lawsuits?

Bobo is the founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, an organization that appeals to the shared convictions of all religions in protecting the rights of the everyday worker, especially low-wage workers.

Bobo alleges that in meat processing plants, retail businesses, restaurants, garment assembly plants, the construction industry, and several other occupational settings, “workers are having their legal wages stolen by unscrupulous employers trying to gain an advantage over their law abiding competitors.”

In 1996, Bobo established the national Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) organization, having spent many years previously advocating for worker justice. Since its founding, IWJ has grown into a network of more than 50 religious labor groups and 20 worker centers. In 2007, the organization’s worker centers scattered throughout the country recovered $1,249,052 in wages for workers.

The organization also funds and operates numerous programs, including one that pairs seminary and rabbinical students with labor unions. “Too often the religious community and the labor communities have worked in isolation from one another,” the IWJ website states.

Raising awareness of wage theft is a formidable task, but it can be tackled effectively with the power of faith-based conscience. Bringing attention to the problem of unethical corporate practices is like shining a spotlight in a dark basement where creepy things lurk.

Bobo’s new book, Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It, is another way that the activist is shining light on the “crime wave no one talks about.” According to Bobo, between two and three million people are paid less than minimum wage for their work every year. Misclassifying employees as independent contractors is also a trick many companies use to avoid payroll taxes and overtime pay.

IWJ’s website provides a wealth of information and resources pertaining to workers’ rights and the issue of wage theft, including an expanded definition of the term and answers to many questions about the problem. Some interesting facts surrounding wage theft, borrowed from IWJ’s website, are listed below.

• Wage theft covers a variety of infractions that occur when workers do not receive their legally or contractually promised wages.
• Wage theft consists of employer violations of the Davis-Bacon Act, Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Housing and Urban Development Act Section 3.
• Wage theft is endemic across the labor market, and especially in the low wage labor market.
• Agriculture, poultry processing, janitorial services, restaurant work, garment manufacturing, long term care, home health care and retail are the industries with the most reported cases of wage theft.
• The number of Department of Labor (DOL) wage and hour investigators dropped by 14 percent between 1975 and 2004.
• The number of compliance actions declined 36 percent in that time.
• The workforce covered by the FLSA grew 55 percent in that time.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Woman crusades against epidemic of wage theft

According to the bill’s summary, the proper classification of these workers would ensure they are treated correctly in relation to employment tax purposes upon a determination of misclassification by the Secretary of the Treasury; repeal the ban on Treasury regulations or revenue rulings on employee/independent contractor classifications; and eliminate the defense of industry practice as a justification for misclassifying workers as independent contractors.

The bill also would require the Secretary to establish a procedure for workers to petition for a determination of their status as employees or independent contractors; would require the secretaries of the Treasury and Labor to issue annual reports and exchange information on worker misclassification cases; directs the Secretary of Labor to include on workplace posters required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) a notice informing workers of their right to seek a status determination; and requires employers to notify their independent contractors of their federal tax obligations, labor and employment protections inapplicable to independent contractors and their right to seek a status determination from the IRS.

Employers also would be required to maintain records on independent contractors for three years, including names and tax identification numbers.

The bill was read twice before the Senate and then referred to the Committee on Finance, where it is currently being reviewed. Read the full bill, Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act of 2007.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Obama bill seeks to clarify contractor employee classification

Brown is an agent for LiveOps, a company based in Palo Alto, Calif., with a national network of 16,000 operators who work from home answering the phone for TV infomercials.

Brown, who lives in Houston, works in her pajamas and never knows what she’ll be selling until the script pops up on her computer screen.

“You have to learn to be relaxed,” Brown said.

LiveOps is on a hiring spree, ramping up to handle all the calls for exercise machines and diet plans from viewers trying to live up to their New Year’s resolutions.

LiveOps would like to add 200 agents to the 180 who are already working in Houston, said Tim Whipple, vice president of the virtual call center, whose clients include the sellers of Ronco knives and rotisserie ovens, Hip Hop Abs fitness program, WalkFit shoe inserts and the Whitney Education Group’s program on foreclosure investing.

LiveOps also handles the calls for 1-800-Flowers.com and Pizza Hut, he said.

The work-at-home model works well for the company, which must staff up when its customers are in the buying mood — and that often occurs in the middle of the night.

The sophisticated shift-scheduling program it uses can also handle huge short-term spikes such as pizza orders during the Super Bowl, Whipple said.

It’s also an attractive model for the many stay-at-home moms — and some dads — who want to pocket extra cash.

“It’s been the best thing that ever happened,” said Brown, who has a degree in marketing.

She has four children, ages 2, 3, 7 and 10, and wanted a way to supplement her husband’s salary as a middle school teacher.

Day care is expensive, Brown said, so she wanted a job that she could do when her children sleep and her husband is at home. A friend told her about LiveOps.

As a telephone agent, Brown picks her own schedule once a week. She often signs on at 9 p.m. and works for several hours. And there’s no commute.

Brown said she earns between $12 and $14 an hour and that she works about 20 hours a week. She has to provide — at her expense — a dedicated phone line, phone, a computer and high-speed Internet access.

She only earns money when she’s on the phone, which Whipple said is roughly 25 cents a minute plus any commissions.

The number of calls routed to Brown and other agents depend on their selling skills and ability to sell up — selling extra items callers agree to buy after listening to the agent’s sales pitch — as well as their speed. The better you do, the more calls you get.

When there is a lull between the calls, Brown said she watches movies or pays bills.

Not for everyone

However, the job may not be for everyone. That’s because agents aren’t paid for the time they spend waiting for calls and training, including watching the infomercials.

LifeOps treats its agents as independent contractors rather than employees, Whipple said, which means they don’t receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. While agents can earn as much as $20 an hour, the average is more like $8 to $12 an hour, he said.

But a recently filed lawsuit by two agents in Georgia contends they don’t even earn the minimum wage when their training time and nonpaid downtime between calls are factored in. The two women argue they’re employees — not independent contractors — and are entitled to minimum wage and overtime pay.

The federal court rules in the Southern District of Georgia discourages attorney comment on pending litigation, said Mark Johnson, a lawyer with Gilbert, Harrell, Sumerford & Martin in Brunswick, Ga., who is representing the two women.

LiveOps spokeswoman Elizabeth Gordon said the company had no comment.

No office policies

Rose Johnson Branch, who is not a part of the lawsuit, estimates that she works 50 hours a week as a LiveOps agent in Houston, fielding infomercial calls as well as pizza orders from all over the country.

Branch said she typically earns between $15 and $20 an hour with LiveOps, depending on bonuses.

“The phone doesn’t stay idle much,” she said, crediting her experience and picking up every call with a smile in her voice. And there’s no office politics.

“In corporations, there are certain politics to play to get promotions,” she said. “The system has no idea you are in your pajamas. It just knows a lot of orders, a lot of up-sales. It’s a very nondiscriminatory system, and I love it.”

SOURCE: They pitch sales in their pajamas, by L.M. Sixel, Houston Chronicle

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › They pitch sales in their pajamas