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Category: wages

International Students in Ontario Are Fighting Wage Theft—And Winning

Posted on by Caitlyn Clark
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Caitlyn Clark

In Brampton, Ontario, a small team of young organizers has begun taking on the businesses that exploit them, one case at a time.

The Naujawan Support Network, a collective of international students and migrant workers from Punjab, India, has won back more than $200,000 Canadian ($154,000 U.S.) in stolen wages in just over a year.

“We started a year ago because we observed that there was an increase in suicides among international students,” said Simran Dhunna, one of the founding members of NSN. “Every week we would see GoFundMes raising funds to cover the costs of sending the corpse of a young worker back home. A big reason behind it was the exploitation people faced.”

Over 30 percent of international students in Canada come from India, and while enrollment of Indian students in Canada has increased by nearly 200 percent over the last five years, many are struggling.

International students in Canada are limited by their student visas to parttime work, totaling no more than 20 hours per week. To keep up with the cost of living, they often work “under the table.”

In Brampton, international students commonly work at small businesses such as restaurants and logistics contractors. Conditions are brutal, with workers often paid below minimum wage.

Satinder Kaur Grewal said she was paid $100 Canadian ($77 U.S.) per day for 12-hour workdays at Chat Hut, an Indian restaurant in Brampton. Chat Hut had promised to support her permanent residency application, a tactic many employers of international students use to keep workers in line. After protesting with NSN, Satinder received $16,495 Canadian ($12,705 U.S.) back pay from Chat Hut in February.

NSN runs awareness campaigns to inform international students that they are eligible to file claims for stolen wages with Canada’s Ministry of Labour, even if their employer paid them in cash under the table. But because the claims process is often long and arduous—and results in only partial wage repayment—NSN has taken a hands-on, direct-action approach to recover stolen wages directly from employers.

NSN members say they were inspired by the Indian farmer-laborer protests, when tens of thousands of farmers occupied the borders of Delhi from August 2020 to December 2021 until India’s repressive and exploitative Farm Bills were repealed. The exertion of worker power in India moved Punjabi students to take the wage theft crisis in Canada into their own hands.

“What we have learned from our history back home is that we have to have the courage to fight for ourselves,” said Dhunna. “We emphasize self-organization, independent organization led by workers themselves.”

THIEF ALERT

“We had to organize in a way that wasn’t in the traditional sense,” said Amandeep Singh, an organizer with NSN who won back $3,000 Canadian ($2,310 U.S.) in stolen wages from his former employer at a trucking company.

“Workers are not paid, or are mistreated, and they leave the job. There are no stable jobs for immigrants. We are working in jobs that are non-unionized, that have high turnover.” This has led NSN to emphasize direct action, social media strategy, and public pressure campaigns to win back stolen wages. “We’re reflecting the working conditions of our membership.”

“One of the unique features of NSN is that we directly confront the people who exploit us,” said Dhunna. NSN frequently engages in marches on the boss’s home to deliver demands, a tactic that helped win Singh his wages back.

A typical NSN campaign begins with the hand-delivery of demands to the employer’s home with a one-to-two-week deadline to resolve the issue privately; if they don’t, the protests and social media campaigns begin.

Shame is one of the group’s most powerful tools. NSN’s social media pages often circulate images of business owners with the caption “CHOR ALERT”—“chor” means “thief” in Punjabi. Through such public shaming, NSN has mobilized community members to join protests and boycott businesses until workers receive payment.

FILLS A GAP

Dhunna believes NSN’s unconventional approach fills a gap left by unions and advocacy groups in Canada.

“I don’t think that the traditional labor establishment like unions has figured out a way to organize recent immigrants or international students who are moving jobs a lot,” she said. “It’s a sector of society that isn’t prioritized or captured by unions right now.”

NSN’s success has been met with retaliation through defamation lawsuits from bosses. But the group has already won a suit filed against it by Buta Singh, owner of trucking company Flowboy Haulage, after NSN began a protest campaign to win back 194 hours of stolen wages for truck driver Gagandeep Singh.

The Superior Court dismissed the suit, and the Ministry of Labour ordered that Gagandeep Singh be repaid more than $5,000 Canadian ($3,871 U.S.) in wages.

You can give to the Naujawan Support Network’s legal defense fund on GoFundMe. Follow NSN on Twitter @NSNPeel, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

This blog originally appeared at LaborNotes on July 21, 2022. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Author’s name is Caitlyn Clark. Caitlyn is an intern at Labor Notes for the summer of 2022.


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Sanitation Workers Win Raise After Going on Strike—With Community Support

Posted on by James Stout
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CHULA VISTA, CALIF.—“Who are we?” Teamsters! ?“What do we want?” Contract! ?“When do we want it?” Now!

The sanitation workers of Teamsters Local 542 were still in good voice three weeks into their strike, which began Dec. 17, 2021, even as Republic Services started bringing in nonunion out-of-staters as garbage piled up. Republic had refused the Teamsters’ demands for so long that the city of Chula Vista declared a public health emergency because of the amount of uncollected refuse.

Close to 300 workers, many of them Latino or Black, were on strike across three different San Diego County locations. ?“We want to go back to work,” said Chula Vista picketer Ladere Hampton, ?“so that we can clean up the city.”

Workers were demanding wage increases and new trucks (barring improved maintenance on the existing vehicles), saying their equipment was poorly maintained and could create a health hazard?—?especially to the children who often greet them on their routes.

“You don’t want to be driving down the street and you’ve got trash juices flying off your wheels, especially if you pull up to a customer’s house,” Hampton said. ?“And that’s happening.”

Workers also cited long hours as a point of contention. Many drivers work 11-hour days and six-day weeks, servicing more than 1,000 homes per route.

The picket line held back the ?“Blue Crew”?—?Republic’s term for the replacement workers, flown in from around the country?—?for a few minutes before letting them through to the facility’s driveway. As the Republic trucks sat waiting, Hampton pointed out how filthy they were?—?they’re normally cleaned weekly. He also held up a picture of a truck that arrived with a bin hanging off the side, a clear safety hazard.

“[Republic is] paying all this money to bring in a crew to try to do our job,” Hampton said. ?“And they’re not doing such a good job.”

The Republic media relations office told In These Times: ?“Safety is our number one priority at Republic Services. … Our Blue Crew relief team is made up of elite Republic Services drivers, technicians, and supervisors from around the country, and we’re grateful for their support in taking care of our customers in the San Diego area.”

The San Diego strike followed a similar dispute between Teamsters and Republic in December 2021 in Orange County, Calif., which concluded after seven days. It may not be the last. Republic is the second-largest trash collection company in the United States, with facilities in more than 40 states; the Teamsters represent more than 7,000 Republic workers, with contracts all over the nation up for renegotiation this year. And despite dragging its feet on wage increases for workers, Republic paid its CEO more than $12 million in 2020.

Even with nationwide support, the strike wasn’t easy on the workers, especially during the holiday season. Next to the picket line was a tent with a small box for donations. ?“If there’s anybody that needs some help, we’re willing to give them the box with the money, and hopefully that helps them so that they can stay out here,” Hampton explained.

He said the strikers had also experienced an outpouring of solidarity from the community. A couple of nights prior, two trucks had come through with ?“bags of groceries… for each [striking] driver,” he said.

As we talked, someone shouts ?“cliente” and the picket line splits to allow customers to enter the facility and drop off their own trash. The driver honks and waves.

Hampton pulls out his phone to find a picture. ?“You know, we’ve had a lady come out here and bring her kids out here because they knew?—?the kids knew?—?what was going on and they wanted to come out here and support us,” he says. In the photo, dozens of yellow-vested Teamsters smile and crouch down to share the frame with a small child holding a picket sign.

The Teamsters accepted an offer from Republic on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 17. The new contract includes wage increases and some healthcare benefits, but falls short of what the striking workers wanted.

“The new pay rates I believe are $26.90 [hourly], and before the strike, we were at $25 flat,” according to worker Dohney Castillo. Workers will also receive wage increases in 2023, 2024 and 2025, Castillo says.

“This was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make,” Rafael Mejia, a worker at Republic, says in a statement published on the Teamsters’ website.

“We are fighting for dignity and respect on the job, but we also know that the strike has been affecting our communities and our neighbors and our own families. This contract isn’t everything we believe we deserve, but it’s enough to go back to work and go back to taking care of our communities.”

This blog originally appeared at In These Times on February 17, 2022

About the Author: James Stout is a freelance writer, published with numerous media outlets.


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Service + Solidarity Spotlight: MEBA Fights for Better Pay and Working Conditions for Staten Island Ferry Mariners

Posted on by Kenneth Quinnell
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Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

The Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA) is raising the alarm about New York City’s ability to attract and retain skilled mariners to work on the Staten Island Ferry. At the union’s urging, U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island sent a letter to Mayor Eric Adams, asking him to repair a broken wage structure that is compromising consistent ferry sailings, mariner retention and passenger safety.

MEBA, which represents captains, assistant captains, engineers and mates on the ferries, has pointed out that officers in the fleet work for much less than industry wages, with inadequate benefits, and have not received a pay increase in almost 11 years. “Nobody sticks around, they leave,” said MEBA Secretary-Treasurer Roland “Rex” Rexha, a former shop steward at the ferry system. “Why would they stay at the Staten Island Ferry when it’s not even close to industry wages?

This blog originally appeared at AFL-CIO on January, 20, 2022.

About the Authors: Kenneth Quinell is a Senior Writer at the AFL-CIO.

Aaron Gallant is the Internal Communications Specialist at AFL-CIO


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How the Potency of Social Wages Can Beat Back Neoliberalism

Posted on by Jack Metzgar
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Jack Metzgar – LAWCHA

At the core of President Biden’s American Families Plan is an understanding that workers are paid too little in market wages and that government has a responsibility to change that.

If President Biden’s American Families Plan becomes law as he proposed it, my grand-niece Harri will finally have a ?“modest yet adequate” standard of living based on a new commitment from the federal government to provide social wages.

Harri is a 30-year-old single mother of two, one 3?year-old and one in school. As an assistant manager at Walmart, she makes about $47,000 a year, but about $8,000 of that goes for day care for her preschooler. She recently started getting $550 a month in a Child Tax Credit (CTC), but that’s just a temporary boost for the next year that was part of the Democrats’ March stimulus package. If the Families Plan?—?part of what Biden describes as ?“human infrastructure”?—?becomes law, she’ll get that CTC money for another five years and her preschooler will get free pre?K public education, freeing Harri from paying for day care.

Add it all up, and Harri’s income will be topped up by $6,600 and she’ll be saving $8,000 a year on day-care costs. She’ll go from having $47,000 a year in reported income to having $53,600, but with the absence of day-care costs, her real spending income will be enhanced by $14,600, a 37% increase. Where she lives, in central Pennsylvania, the Economic Policy Institute figures that with no child care costs, she would need about $49,000 to have a modest yet adequate standard of living. Harri will have a little more than that. Bringing in $53,600 will not provide her with a life of luxury, but the magnitude of that change should be transformative for Harri and her children. Harri will get more than parents with fewer kids or fewer pre-schoolers, but she’ll get less than parents with more kids or more than one preschooler. 

The point is that the combination of the CTC and public pre?K (plus an additional program where parents of one- and two-year-olds will pay no more than 7% of their income for day care) will make a dramatic difference in most parents’ and children’s lives. It is often said that the CTC by itself will cut child poverty in half. But the whole combination will do much more than that for many more families, including those who are not poor but struggle to get by.

Beyond its variety of impacts on different American families, Biden’s Families Plan is a breakthrough commitment to the concept of social wages, a concept that has even wider application. Along with other Biden initiatives, there appears to be a firm Democratic recognition that most workers are paid too little in market wages to get by and that the government has a responsibility to change that.

Social wages are different from the commonly (and loosely) used phrase ?“social safety net.” Safety-net programs, like unemployment compensation and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, are for people who have fallen on hard times for one reason or another. Like a net, they keep people from falling farther by providing temporary income until they can get back on their feet. 

Social wages, on the other hand, are more permanent, less means-tested, and available for much larger groups of people. They either subsidize essential workers by increasing their pay or reduce costs of common goods and services. Among Biden’s various plans, for example, are wage subsidies for home care and day care workers who now average $23,000 and $22,000 a year respectively. Obamacare subsidies and the Earned Income Tax Credit do this for a broader group of low-wage workers. Many cities with strong labor movements, like New York, have long had reduced transit fares and rent control to keep costs affordable for low- and moderate-wage workers, though better-paid workers benefit as well. In the postwar years, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union established cooperative housing and even a non-profit bank to reduce their members’ and other workers’ cost of living.

Increased income or reduced costs increase human freedom by providing a higher standard of living that gives people the chance to choose how to spend money, not just struggle to pay the bills. Harri should have nearly $4,000 in discretionary income if the Families Plan becomes law, something she has never had before. Disposable income is your income after taxes, and almost everybody has some. Discretionary income is the income you have left after all your ordinary expenses are met, the money you can actually choose how to spend. It’s anything over that modest yet adequate amount that the Economic Policy Institute has estimated for your family in the place you live.

Biden’s Families plan will affect my niece’s family and its prospects much more than it will for many other families. A family with one school-age child, for example, will get only $250 a month with the CTC and no savings for child care. Or, a single mother with two children, like Harri, will get the same amount in CTC and in child-care savings, but because she earns only $20,000, she’ll end up with a mere $26,600 and free day care?—?no longer in official poverty but still a long way from a modest but adequate income.

But the concept of social wages is just as important as the specific result of any particular program. It means that the federal government accepts its responsibility to make sure that ?“nobody who works full time should live in poverty.” It also represents the transfer of money from our super-wealthy to workers who make less than a modest but adequate living. Biden proposes to pay for his plans with increased taxes on corporations and on individuals who earn more than $400,000 a year?—?though it would be even fairer if the Walton family had to pay Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax on their $247 billion in wealth since Harri and her co-workers helped produce some of that.

I’m as surprised as anyone at how sweepingly progressive Biden’s initiatives are, but none of them came full-blown from the head of Biden. They are all programs that have been developed and advocated for by progressive activists and academics in opposition to a seemingly impregnable public commitment to neoliberalism?—?all that movement and electoral politics of the past several decades, all those Fight for $15 actions and the doors Berniecrats knocked on.

As an academic, I am especially inspired by the intellectual work that contributed to this process. Efforts to establish ?“modest but adequate” levels of family income, for example, had begun in the postwar period by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics?—?at a time when unions represented one of every three workers and that Henry Wallace aspirationally dubbed ?“the century of the common man.” That statistical series was ended in the early years of the Reagan administration, signifying that the federal government no longer gave a shit about what was adequate for common people. A decade or so later, a more sophisticated effort to establish adequate income levels was undertaken first by Wider Opportunities for Women and then by the Economic Policy Institute. The Reagan administration didn’t want us to be able to measure how inadequate most family incomes would become. But now we know, and we have one of our political parties at least rhetorically aspiring to adequacy.

The fate of Harri and her kids and millions like them will be determined in the next few weeks as the Democrats cajole, negotiate with, and debate each other about what will be in the final budget reconciliation bill. Let’s hope they do enough to decisively turn the page on four decades of neoliberal indifference to the people who do essential work we all depend upon.

This blog originally appeared at In These Times on July 14, 2021. Reprinted with permission.

About the author: Jack Metzgar is a professor emeritus of Humanities at Roosevelt University in Chicago. A former president of the Working-Class Studies Association, he is the author of a forthcoming book from Cornell University Press, Bridging the Divide: Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society.


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COVID-19 highlights gross inequality on this Latina Equal Pay Day

Posted on by Laura Clawson
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It’s Oct. 29, and it’s Latina Equal Pay Day. That means that on this day, the typical Latina has been paid as much since Jan. 1, 2019 as the typical white man was paid between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2019. That’s because Latinas are paid just 54 or 55 cents on the white man’s dollar overall.

It’s a particularly grievous injury in this year of the pandemic. “We may be valued less, but Latinas are among the pandemic’s most essential workers,” actor and activist America Ferrera writes. “When most Americans were told to stay safe at home, many Latinas didn’t have the luxury of protecting themselves and their families first. They were called to the front lines to protect other Americans; to do the work of caring for sick Americans in hospitals, working the fields to keep Americans fed, or supporting other families through domestic work. Even though the Latinx community makes up less than 20% of the U.S. population, we make up over 40% of workers in both the meatpacking and farming industries.”

But it’s not all about what industries Latinas work in. Latinas are also paid just 67 cents “relative,” the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes, “to non-Hispanic white men with the same level of education, age, and geographic location.” This is not just a pay disparity coming from differences in education or age, in other words, so don’t try to make that argument. In fact, “Latina doctors, many of whom are currently treating coronavirus patients, are paid 68% of the average hourly wage of non-Hispanic white male doctors (a difference of $20.46 per hour).”

Medicine isn’t the only industry of critical importance during the coronavirus pandemic in which Latinas are underpaid, EPI reports. It’s also true of restaurant wait staff, cashiers, child care workers, and elementary and middle school teachers.

There can be no serious argument that this isn’t about both sexism and racism. 

This blog originally appeared at Daily Kos on October 29, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the author: Laura Clawson is a staff writer on labor for Daily Kos.


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Increasing the minimum wage would help, not hurt, the economy

Posted on by Martha White
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The minimum wage in the United States hasn’t budged in 11 years. Whether it should was a hotly contested question during Thursday’s final presidential debate.

President Donald Trump asserted that increasing the minimum wage would crush small businesses, many of which are already struggling as a result of the pandemic, arguing that the decision should be left to the states. Democratic nominee Joe Biden repeated his campaign pledge to raise the minimum wage from its current $7.25 to $15.

Establishing a $15 wage floor has been a long-term goal of union-backed advocacy groups, which began putting pressure on big companies like McDonald’s and Walmart to pay workers $15 an hour in 2012. The Democratic Party made a $15 minimum wage part of its platform ahead of the 2016 election season. A handful of states with high costs of living — California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — as well as some cities have adopted laws that will raise the minimum wage to $15 over time, and 29 states as well as the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the federal one.

The issue clearly resonates with voters: “Wages” was the most-searched topic in 44 states during the debate (the top search in the remaining six states was “unemployment”). Surveys indicate, though, that Trump’s view is out of step with that of most Americans: Two-thirds want to see a $15 minimum wage, according to the Pew Research Center.

Business groups have argued that raising the minimum wage forces business owners to fire workers, a claim echoed by Trump in the debate. The reality is more complex: The evidence of job loss is inconsistent, and the benefits are accrued by some of the country’s most vulnerable populations.

In terms of reducing income and wealth disparities, a rising minimum wage is a good thing. “The benefits in terms of reducing inequality — getting money into people’s pockets, stimulating the market — are very well proven,” said Till von Wachter, professor of economics and director of the California Policy Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The best evidence is that judiciously set minimum wages make a lot of sense. They raise earnings, reduce individual and family poverty, and have no measurable negative effects on employment,” said David Autor, an economics professor at MIT and co-chair of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future.

A report last year by the Congressional Budget Office found that a $15 minimum wage would increase the income of 27 million workers, 17 million of whom currently earn below that amount with the remaining 10 million earning just over $15 an hour, but all of whom would see their wages rise due to what economists call the “spillover effect.”

When adjusted for inflation, today’s minimum wage gives workers far less buying power than it once did. Since peaking 52 years ago, purchasing power of the minimum wage has fallen by 31 percent — the equivalent of $6,800 for someone working full-time at minimum wage for a year.

“The real value of the federal U.S. minimum wage is at a historic low,” Autor said. “I’d be happy to see something like $12 or $13, indexed to inflation so it doesn’t again sink to irrelevance within 10 years.”

A $15 wage would lift 1.3 million households above the poverty line — but the flip side could be fewer jobs. The CBO estimated a median loss of 1.3 million jobs, although it also acknowledged considerable ambiguity with that figure. “Findings in the research literature about how changes in the federal minimum wage affect employment vary widely,” the agency said.

A 10 percent increase in base pay is associated with a 1.5-percentage-point increase in the likelihood that workers will remain with their current employer, which can translate to significant cost savings for companies.

Given the sweeping societal impact a higher minimum wage would have on the lives of the poorest Americans, von Wachter said policymakers should deem this potential an acceptable risk. “We accept these small efficiency costs because we think it’s valuable to provide that redistribution. We accept a trade-off between costs and benefits,” he said, adding that most of the studies have yielded no evidence of higher minimum wages triggering job losses.

Some research has even found the opposite — that is, a higher minimum wage can increase employment in some situations. When studying employment practices of big chain stores, von Wachter found that raising the minimum wage had the most positive effect in labor markets dominated by just a few large employers.

Other data suggests that higher pay improves worker satisfaction and leads to lower turnover, which can help mitigate employers’ higher payroll costs. According to Glassdoor, a 10 percent increase in base pay is associated with a 1.5-percentage-point increase in the likelihood that workers will remain with their current employer, which can translate to significant cost savings for companies. Replacing a low-wage worker costs about 16 percent of that worker’s annual salary.

A minimum wage that hasn’t risen since 2009 will only become increasingly unsustainable for the people relying on it, experts say. “There’s a lot of headroom to raise it [and] workers would benefit,” Autor said. “We can afford to do better.”

This blog originally appeared at NBC News on October 23, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Martha C. White is an NBC News contributor who writes about business, finance and the economy.


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How much would it cost consumers to give farmworkers a significant raise?

Posted on by Daniel Costa
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The increased media coverage of the plight of the more than 2 million farmworkers who pick and help produce our food—and whom the Trump administration has deemed to be “essential” workers for the U.S. economy and infrastructure during the coronavirus pandemic—has highlighted the difficult and often dangerous conditions farmworkers face on the job, as well as their central importance to U.S. food supply chains. For example, photographs and videos of farmworkers picking crops under the smoke- and fire-filled skies of California have been widely shared across the internet, and some data suggest that the number of farmworkers who have tested positive for COVID-19 is rivaled only by meat-processing workers. In addition, around half of farmworkers are unauthorized immigrants and 10% are temporary migrant workers with “nonimmigrant” H-2A visas; those farmworkers have limited labor rights in practice and are vulnerable to wage theft and other abuses due to their immigration status.

Despite the key role they play and the challenges they face, farmworkers are some of the lowest-paid workers in the entire U.S. labor market. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that it would not collect the data on farmworker earnings that are used to determine minimum wages for H-2A workers, which could further reduce farmworker earnings.

This raises the question: How much would it cost to give farmworkers a significant raise in pay, even if it was paid for entirely by consumers? The answer is, not that much. About the price of a couple of 12-packs of beer, a large pizza, or a nice bottle of wine.

The latest data on consumer expenditures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides useful information about consumer spending on fresh fruits and vegetables, which, in conjunction with other data, allow us to calculate roughly how much it would cost to raise wages for farmworkers. (For a detailed analysis of these data, see this blog post at Rural Migration News.) But to calculate this, first we have to see how much a typical household spends on fruits and vegetables every year and the share that goes to farm owners and their farmworker employees.

The BLS data show that expenditures by households (referred to in the data as “consumer units”) in 2019 was $320 on fresh fruits and $295 on fresh vegetables, amounting to $615 a year or $11.80 per week. In addition, households spent an additional $110 on processed fruits and $145 on processed vegetables. Interestingly enough, on average, households spent almost as much on alcoholic beverages ($580) as they did on fresh fruits and vegetables ($615).


Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service show that, on average, farmers receive less than 20% of every retail dollar spent on food, but a slightly higher share of what consumers spend for fresh fruits and vegetables. Figure A shows this share over time for fresh fruits and vegetables: Between 2000 and 2015, farmers received an average 30% of the average retail price of fresh fruits and 26% of the average retail price of fresh vegetables (2015 is the most recent year for which data are available). This means that average consumer expenditures on these items include $173 a year for farmers (0.30 x 320 = $96 + 0.26 x 295 = $77).

Farmers received an average 30% of the retail price of fresh fruit and 26% for fresh vegetables between 2000 and 2015

Farm share of fruit and vegetable retail sales, 2000–2015
DateFruitsVegetables
200026%26%
200128%28%
200229%26%
200328%26%
200425%23%
200528%25%
200630%26%
200730%24%
200827%26%
200928%25%
201029%27%
201133%25%
201236%23%
201335%27%
201435%25%
201538%27%

ChartData

Note: Data for 2015 are the most recent data available from United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Price Spreads from Farm to Consumer [Excel]. Share Tweet Embed Download image

According to studies published by the University of California, Davis, farm labor costs are about a third of farm revenue for fresh fruits and vegetables, meaning that farmworker wages and benefits for fresh fruits and vegetables cost the average household $57 per year (0.33 x $173 = $57). (However, in reality, farm labor costs are less than $57 per year per household because over half of the fresh fruits and one-third of fresh vegetables purchased in the United States are imported.)

To illustrate, that means that farm owners and farmworkers together receive only about one-third of retail spending on fruits and vegetables even though most, and in some cases all, of the work it takes to prepare fresh fruits and vegetables for retail sale takes place on farms (the exact share of the price farmers receive varies slightly by crop). For example, strawberries are picked directly into the containers in which they are sold, and iceberg lettuce is wrapped in the field. Consumers who pay $3 for a pound of strawberries are paying about $1 to the farmer, who pays one-third of that amount to farmworkers, 33 cents. For one pound of iceberg lettuce, which costs about $1.20 on average, farmers receive 40 cents and farmworkers get 13 of those 40 cents.

So, what would it cost to raise the wages of farmworkers? One of the few big wage increases for farmworkers occurred after the Bracero guestworker program ended in 1964. Under the rules of the program, Mexican Braceros were guaranteed a minimum wage of $1.40 an hour at a time when U.S. farmworkers were not covered by the minimum wage. Some farmworkers who picked table grapes were paid $1.40 an hour while working alongside Braceros in 1964, and then were offered $1.25 in 1965, prompting a strike. César Chávez became the leader of the strike and won a 40% wage increase in the first United Farm Workers table grape contract in 1966, raising grape workers’ wages to $1.75 an hour.

What would happen if there were a similar 40% wage increase today and the entire wage increase were passed on to consumers? The average hourly earnings of U.S. field and livestock workers were $14 an hour in 2019; a 40% increase would raise their wages to $19.60 an hour.

For a typical household or consumer unit, a 40% increase in farm labor costs translates into a 4% increase in the retail price of fresh fruits and vegetables (0.30 farm share of retail prices x 0.33 farm labor share of farm revenue = 10%; if farm labor costs rise 40%, retail spending rises 4%). If average farmworker earnings rose by 40%, and the increase were passed on entirely to consumers, average spending on fresh fruits and vegetables for a typical household would rise by $25 per year (4% of $615 = $24.60).

Many farm labor analysts consider a typical year of work for seasonal farmworkers to be about 1,000 hours. A 40% wage increase for seasonal farmworkers would raise their average earnings from $14,000 for 1,000 hours of work to $19,600. Many farmworkers have children at home, so for them, going from earning $14,000 to $19,600 per year would mean going from earning about half of the federal poverty line for a family of four ($25,750 in 2019) to earning about three-fourths of the poverty line. For a farmworker employed year-round for 2,000 hours, earnings would increase from $28,000 per year to $39,200, allowing them to earn far above the poverty line.

Raising wages for farmworkers by 40% could improve the quality of life for farmworkers without significantly increasing household spending on fruits and vegetables. If there were productivity improvements as farmers responded to higher labor costs, households could pay even less than the additional $25 per year for fresh fruits and vegetables.

If average farmworker earnings were doubled (rose by 100%) through increased spending on fresh fruits and vegetables, a typical household would see costs rise by $61.50 per year (10% of $615). That extra $61.50 per year would increase the wages of seasonal farmworkers to $28,000 for 1,000 hours of work, taking them above the poverty line for a family of four.

This blog originally appeared at Economic Policy Institute on October 15, 2020. Reprinted with Permission.

About the Author: Daniel Costa is an attorney who first joined the Economic Policy Institute in 2010 and was EPI’s director of immigration law and policy research from 2013 to early 2018; he returned to this role in 2019 after serving as the California Attorney General’s senior advisor on immigration and labor.

Philip Martin is Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. He edits Rural Migration News, has served on several federal commissions, and testifies frequently before Congress. He is an award-winning author who works for UN agencies around the world on labor and migration issues. His latest book is Merchants of Labor: Recruiters and International Labor Migration, a pioneering analysis of recruiters in low-skilled labor markets explaining the prominent role of labor intermediaries, from Oxford University Press.


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Study: Repeal Of Wisconsin’s Prevailing Wage Law Led To Drop In Wages For Construction Workers

Posted on by Rachael Vasquez
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A new study from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) released exclusively to Wisconsin Public Radio finds the repeal of Wisconsin’s prevailing wage laws has resulted in lower wages for construction workers in Wisconsin, despite having no statistically significant impact on the cost of public construction projects.

Prevailing wage laws set minimum pay requirements for wages paid to workers on public construction projects, like school buildings or highway construction. 

Former Gov. Scott Walker along with GOP lawmakers in the state Legislature repealed Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law for local construction projects in 2015. Two years later, the GOP repealed Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law for state construction projects. 

Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the study shows that before the laws were repealed, the average annual income for full-time construction and extraction workers was close to $49,000. After the laws were repealed, average annual income was a little over $46,000, a drop of more than 5 percent. When the study removed factors such as education and age, the average annual income for workers was 6 percent less than income pre-repeal.

“Prevailing wage provided ladders of access into the middle class for Wisconsin construction workers,” Frank Manzo IV, policy director for the MEPI, said, adding that repealing it has had negative consequences for those same workers. 

Two of Wisconsin’s neighboring states with prevailing wage laws in place showed a smaller drop in annual average income between 2015 and 2018. In Illinois and Minnesota, annual incomes dropped by under 2 percent combined.

The study further found that at the same time, construction industry CEOs saw an increase in pay after the repeal of the prevailing wage, worsening economic inequality, according to the authors. Researchers estimate construction industry CEOs in Wisconsin saw slightly more than a 54 percent increase in inflation-adjusted total income after the laws were repealed.

The data also showed that, following repeal, there was a decrease in the likelihood that skilled construction workers had employer-sponsored health insurance. 

“Repeal has lowered wages and reduced health coverage for skilled construction workers, and resulted in less work for local contractors,” Manzo said. “At the same time, repeal has failed to deliver cost-savings on public projects and to increase bid competition — both of which were promised by politicians.”

Kevin Duncan, an economics professor at Colorado State University-Pueblo who was part of the study’s research team, said when construction workers have a lower income and less health insurance coverage, it has broader effects on local economies.

“When income goes down for construction workers they have less to spend in local retail and service industries,” Duncan said. “And then also with a decrease in health insurance … benefits, that results in greater reliance on public assistance. When construction workers are paid less they have to rely more on public assistance — (food stamps), that sort of thing — so that tends to increase the taxpayer burden.”

Fewer Wisconsin Contractors, No Effect On Construction Costs

At the time of the repeal on state construction projects, many Republicans criticized the law, saying itinflated the costs on public projects, and arguing that repealing the laws would save taxpayers money. 

But researchers with MEPI said the data shows repealing prevailing wage had no statistically significant effect on the costs for public construction projects.  

Researchers also found that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation saw fewer bids from Wisconsin-based contractors after the laws were repealed compared to before. Between January 2015 and September 2017, more than 2,600 bids for DOT projects came from Wisconsin contractors. But between October 2017 and December 2019, following the repeal of the laws, that number dropped to a little over 1,700 bids.

The drop meant the share of bids from out-of-state contractors increased from 9 percent to 13 percent in the same timeframe.  

“What that means is … Wisconsin tax dollars that previously went to Wisconsin contractors and construction workers, (are) now being used to pay workers from out of state,” said Duncan. “When that happens, Wisconsin tax money leaks out of Wisconsin and it stimulates economies in neighboring states instead of supporting the local economy.”

The MEPI study also found there was no statistically significant impact on the racial or ethnic diversity of construction workers before and after repeal. The study did find a drop in the share of women working in construction in Wisconsin after the repeal of prevailing wage, despite that number being extremely low prior to the repeal. 

This blog originally appeared at Wisconsin Public Radio on October 2, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Rachel Vasquez is a producer at Wisconsin Public Radio.


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Working Life Episode 190: Big Pharma’s Greed, Lies and Poisoning of America: Wages for All!

Posted on by Jonathan Tasini
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Here is something we can all agree on I think—drug companies are blood-sucking, greedy cheats who cannot be trusted with the health and welfare of tens of millions of people. Am I right? And that’s even more true as we watch the global scramble to be the first company to profit big-time from a vaccine for COVID19. So, I’m going to focus on the Big Pharma corruption today with a friend and investigative reporter, Gerald Posner who is the author of a mind-boggling expose, “Pharma: Greed, Lies And the Poisoning of America”.

Looking for the single most important thing you can do between now and the end of July to slow the pandemic? As I mentioned last week in outlining my proposal for a $6.5 trillion stimulus bill, badger everyone you know, and of course your members of Congress, to get behind Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s bill, and a similar bill in the Senate co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders, to pay people up to $90,000 a year until the unemployment rate declines below 7 percent for three straight months. I talk more about the bill (and you can see last week’s episode for the full plan) which would pay people enough money so they can pay bills like rent and food, and allow them to stay home, either because they are sick or simply to allow a community-wide lockdown for a number of weeks until the so-called curve is dramatically going down.

This blog originally appeared at Working Life on July 15, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Jonathan Tasini is a political / organizing / economic strategist. President of the Economic Future Group, a consultancy that has worked in a couple of dozen countries on five continents over the past 20 years.


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Breanna Stewart’s injury adds another layer of urgency to WNBA collective bargaining negotiations

Posted on by ThinkProgress Staff
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The 23rd season of the WNBA tips off in a little over a month, and it looks to be a momentous one for the leagues’s athletes. On court, the 12 teams and 144 players will be looking to capitalize on last year’s blockbuster season, which saw a healthy increase in ratings, a new franchise in Las Vegas get off to a promising start, and a level of league-wide talent and parity that produced an indelible array of can’t-miss match-ups on a night in, night out basis.

This year, there will be no small amount of drama off the court as well, as the players will be fighting to secure themselves a bigger piece of this expanding pie. Last October, they opted out of their current collective bargaining agreement, which will now expire at the end of the 2019 season. So they’re not just fighting for wins and titles; they’re literally fighting for better pay, better travel conditions, better marketing, and a better future for the league they love.

Unfortunately, they’re going to have to do all of this without their reigning Most Valuable Player (MVP), Breanna Stewart.

Last week, while playing in the EuroLeague Final Four championship game in Hungary with her team, the Russia-based Dynamo Kursk, Stewart ruptured her right Achilles tendon. It’s a terrible blow to a player whose last 11 months have been among the most accomplished in basketball history. During that time Stewart was recognized as the WNBA’s MVP, the WNBA Finals MVP, the FIBA World Cup MVP, and the FIBA EuroLeague Women regular season MVP. She took home a WNBA championship with the Seattle Storm and a FIBA World Cup championship with Team USA for good measure. Now, her injury will force her to sit out the entire 2019 WNBA season.

When Stewart collapsed to the ground in pain during the EuroLeague championship, her WNBA colleagues around the world stopped in their tracks. Imani McGee-Stafford, a center for the Atlanta Dream, gasped. McGee-Stafford’s Dream teammate, Elizabeth Williams, was watching the game live from Turkey when she saw Stewart fall. At the sight of Stewart’s injury, she screamed, “Nooo!” Elena Delle Donne, a forward for the Washington Mystics and good friend of Stewart’s, was simply heartbroken.

And for all of the WNBA’s players, coaches, and fans, Stewart’s devastating injury highlighted how absurd it is that the biggest stars in the WNBA still have to go overseas to play basketball during the WNBA offseason in order to earn their living, instead of spending the offseason recharging and recuperating. Stewart’s base salary this WNBA season is $64,538; overseas, elite players can sometimes earn $1 million or more per season. The current WNBA maximum salary for veterans is $117,500.

“This is harmful to our league. It effects the product on the floor. And we’ve got to find a solution to this,” said Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve.

The players are certainly trying. The executive committee of the WNBA Player’s Association (WNBPA) — which includes Delle Donne and Williams, along with Nneka Ogwumike, Layshia Clarendon, Chiney Ogwumike, Sue Bird, and Carolyn Swords — has been talking with WNBPA leadership regularly during the offseason to engineer a new path forward.

“Playing overseas should always be a choice, but not a necessity,” Delle Donne said. “There are so many reasons it makes sense for the NBA and WNBA to invest in us as players. Injury prevention is obviously a top reason.”

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A couple of weeks ago, the executive committee members who weren’t currently playing in overseas competition had their first official meeting with WNBA brass — including NBA commissioner Adam Silver, NBA deputy commissioner and interim WNBA president Mark Tatum, and several WNBA owners. The meeting was essentially a listening session, where the WNBPA laid out its priorities heading into negotiations: Salary and compensation, player experience, health and safety, and establishing a lasting business model for the league.

And while fostering the health and safety of players by limiting the need to seek employment opportunities overseas was already on the agenda, there’s little doubt that Stewart’s injury will add weight to to the conversation.

“This brings it more to the forefront and brings some urgency to the cause,” Williams said.

Injury prevention isn’t the only reason why its important to ensure that players have more opportunities to stay in the United States during the WNBA offseason. Going overseas for long stretches of time and playing competitive basketball without some sort of meaningful break contributes to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.

“We virtually put our lives on hold when we play overseas,” McGee-Stafford said. “We miss holidays, events, time with loved ones. But furthermore, we miss marketing moments and accessibility from our fans.”

Take Williams, for example. She has only had approximately three weeks of downtime since the Dream lost in the semifinals of last year’s WNBA playoffs in September. She’s currently in Turkey, competing in the first round of their playoffs. If her team makes it to the finals, she could be coming back more than a week into Dream training camp next month. And then the cycle would start again.

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Similarly, it’s an incredible frustration for WNBA coaches, who spend training camps unable to work with their full roster due to so many absences because of overseas play; then, when players finally return, they’re nowhere near refreshed or ready to go.

“When our players come back, we are constantly making concessions,” Reeve said. “We have to change how much time we can spend on the court with them, so you just lose the ability to have this individual improvement when there’s no offseason.”

Of course, the only way to solve this problem is money. And that’s where the conversation usually hits a roadblock. Silver has been outspoken about the fact that the WNBA is still a fledgling league, subsidized by the NBA. Partially because of those comments, there has been an erosion of trust between the WNBA players and WNBA leadership — a fact that isn’t helped by the fact that the WNBA still has not named its next president, six months after Lisa Borders resigned.

Silver has insisted that he’s committed to rebuilding that trust, but the only way to truly do it is by making a significant investment in the players during this collective bargaining session.

“I just think we have a unique opportunity, the NBA does, in that they’re seen as a progressive league, and they’re an iconic brand,” Reeve said. “The idea of being a leader in society, that would mean you’re the one putting your foot forward and saying, ‘Do this with us, treat women this way with us.’ You sort-of create a chain reaction by you stepping forward and saying, ‘You will do this, because it’s important.’ And I think when you see that opportunity, minds will change.”

Delle Donne agrees. It’s time for the chicken vs. egg fight with investment vs. success to stop. The WNBA is growing. The fans are watching. The players are getting better by leaps and bounds every generation. But the only way to continue this growth is if the best players in the world play in the WNBA. And they can’t do that if they’re getting injured playing for teams on other continents that pay them significantly more money.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest, especially the league’s and the owners’, to invest in us as players – our safety, our physical and mental well-being – to grow the game,” she said.

“Everything else, and especially the future growth of the game, hinges on the WNBA being the best and most elite place to play basketball.”

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on April 21, 2019. Reprinted with permission. 

About the Author: Lindsay Gibbs covers sports for ThinkProgress.


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