http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=560ahy0w1S8&feature=youtu.be
Café or Communities in Action and Faith says it has received more than 100 reports of companies not paying the full Las Cruces minimum wage. But the lack of enforcement on a city level means those wage violation claims are not being addressed.
In 2014 Communities in Action and Faith coordinated the ballot initiative that put a minimum wage increase ordinance before the Las Cruces city council and eventually into law.
But Café Executive Director Sarah Nolan says since the increase went into effect in January they have received more 100 reports of employers not complying with the new law.
Violations include withholding the full minimum wage, the higher tipped wage, delaying the increase or cutting worker hours while requiring the same amount of work.
“We were getting phone calls. A lot of our leaders out in the field when they would go and eat out or people that knew that they were part of our campaign, they would go to them and tell them these stories. We heard it through our congregations some of our workers.” Nolan says.
But just how valid the more than 100 claims of wage theft really are may never be discovered. Nolan says none of the affected workers feel comfortable discussing the cases or taking them any further for fear of losing hours or their jobs completely.
“For many families not only is there the threat of losing their job or getting their hours cut, we have to understand that many of these families this is their only source of income. This is a job that is keeping them from going on assistance or being completely unemployed as a family.” Nolan says.
Albuquerque and Santa Fe both impose criminal and financial penalties on employers that break their minimum wage laws. But Las Cruces leaves it up to the minimum wage worker to take the violating employer to district court. Nolan says the city should enforce the law just like it does many others.
“I’m not required to enforce when other people are not wearing a seat belt or other people are like texting on the phone while they are driving. It is not my job to drive to the city attorney or go to local law enforcement and make them enforce their own laws. That is the job of the police. That is the job of the city attorney and yet in this case why is there a separation? What is the difference that then now places all the responsibility on the worker.” Nolan says. “That makes no sense to me.”
Earlier in the year Amber Care, a personal in home care provider operating in Las Cruces was withholding the full minimum wage from employees for the hours they were serving clients outside the city limits. Instead of receiving $8.40 an hour they were only getting $8 dollars.
In an interview earlier in the year City Manager Robert Garza said the company was able to be brought in to wage compliance once they were put on notice.
“They looked at it and said you know it is a lot easier for us to just pay the same wage. So compliance, that is what we strive for with any ordinance." Garza says.
Garza said he is not sure a criminal enforcement measure is even necessary. But Amber Care told KRWG earlier this year they won’t pay their workers back wages. The company refused further comment for this story.
Former Dona Ana County Commissioner Oscar Vasquez Butler wrote the Las Cruces Sun News to bring Amber Care’s wage violation to light he says the workers that initially reached out to him have gone silent.
“That is what is troubling is that they were going to meet with me and kind of share what has been going on within the Amber Care work environment since our letter came out, since the concern came out regarding the in equity in pay. I called and made a follow up call and they never returned the call same with the other employees they just don’t want to get involved any more and I think that kind of fear or threat that there is this cloud over them.” Vasquez-Butler says.
Vasquez-Butler says without a municipal criminal enforcement measure the city is leaving low-wage workers in a position where they have to take their employers to court.
Sarah Nolan says low wage workers would speak out about wage violations if they felt protected and employers faced real penalties, like the fines and jail time required in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
Las Cruces city councilor Nathan Small says he will be bringing enforcement amendments to the city council. Whether those amendments pass or not Small says it will bring the wage theft and other minimum wage issues out of the shadows.
“We need to make the space within the city council for employees or these stories to make sure and come before the council and the community. We need to find a way to take what is anecdotal and to discuss that and to get that out into the public sphere while protecting folks from retribution and other things” Small says.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutDdb5oxG4&feature=youtu.be
Small says an upcoming work session will address more than an enforcement measure for the minimum wage. He says it will also allow businesses to discuss how they are preparing for the additional wage increases in 2017 and 2019.
City manager Robert Garza tells KRWG news that because of the city’s charter voters would have to approve any enforcement measure affecting the minimum wage law.
