Wage Theft in America
Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, joins us this week for discussion of her book Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid - And What We Can Do About It. Senator Ted Kennedy has said the book offers "bold, practical, and progressive solutions for how policymakers and advocates can end the growing crisis of wage theft in America."
From Kim's opening post:
I didn't set out to write a book on wage theft. I set out to write more of a monograph on what a visionary Department of Labor might look like. But to do that I had to explain why we needed a visionary Department of Labor. A friend in the church choir I direct admitted he didn't even know we had a Department of Labor. (So much for its visibility in people's lives!) I began by explaining the breadth of the crisis of wage theft. Then I explained how wage theft occurs. Next I explained why it happens. As an organizer, I had lots of suggestions for what people could do to help stop and deter wage theft. Consequently, before you knew it, I had a book on wage theft.
Joining the discussion are Liza Featherstone, Nation journalist and author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart; Bill Fletcher, author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice and longtime labor and international activist; Steve Greenhouse, New York Times labor reporter and author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker; Nathan Newman, Policy Director for the Progressive Legislative Action Network; T. A. Frank, Consulting Editor at The Washington Monthly; and Dean Baker, Cafe regular, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
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