Los Angeles Workers Face Higher Labor Violations

Low-wage workers in Los Angeles experience more wage and labor violations than low-wage workers in Chicago and New York, a study by the UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment found.

The survey found that low-wage workers in Los Angeles regularly experience violations of basic laws that mandate a minimum wage and overtime pay, and are frequently forced to work off the clock or during their breaks. Other violations included a lack of required payroll documentation, being paid late, tip stealing and employer retaliation.

Among the study’s findings:

• 4.3 percent of Los Angeles respondents who had a serious on-the-job injury during the previous three years had filed a workers’ comp claim for their most recent injury.
• Of seriously injured Los Angeles respondents, 42.3 percent were required to work despite their injury. And 30.3 percent said their employer refused to help, and 12.6 percent were fired shortly after the injury.
• 51.3 percent of Los Angeles respondents who experienced a serious injury at work sought medical attention, but only 48.6 percent within that group indicated that their employers paid any part of the medical bills.
• Almost 30 percent of the Los Angeles workers were paid less than the minimum wage in the week preceding the survey. And 79.2 percent of those at-risk workers were not paid the legally required overtime rate.
• Among all workers in the Los Angeles sample, 14.7 percent had either made a complaint in the year prior to their interview. Nearly half of those respondents who had made complaints experienced retaliation from their employer or supervisor.

“These problems are not limited to the underground economy or to a few bad apples,” the survey’s authors said. The survey found that large and small employers across a variety of industries regularly violate the law. And the type of job in which a worker is employed is a far better predictor of violations than the worker’s demographic characteristics.