Workers’ Dignity Helps Coordinate the Fights Against Wage Theft

Every Thursday in a small single-story house off Nolensville Pike, organizers and volunteers with Workers’ Dignity meet with low-wage workers who say their bosses owe them money. That could mean stolen tips, unpaid hours or other damages, and their concerns sometimes include unsafe working conditions or mistreatment. Whatever the case, the Nashville-based workers’ rights center is out to help them recoup their losses. 

One evening, about a dozen people attend a workers’ rights workshop hosted at the Workers’ Dignity headquarters. Sam Petschulat and Marijke Kylstra, two volunteers with Workers’ Dignity, sit with an older man outside on the porch and prepare to make a phone call. Petschulat explains what’s going on: They’re going to call the man’s employer, a restaurant owner, and tell him they’re seeking back pay and damages. Minutes later, the phone call is over, cut short because the restaurant owner would prefer to speak to someone in Spanish. Petschulat hangs up and asks a passing volunteer, RJ Robles, to help.

Robles grabs a script and another sheet with details about the case and places the call, with Kylstra, Petschulat and the worker listening on speaker. After some back-and-forth, the employer tells Robles he’ll send a lawyer to meet with Workers’ Dignity the following week. The group heads inside, as the sun sets and the mosquitoes grow more aggressive.

Inside, the workshop is still going on, with the attendees — a few workers and their family members — sitting in folding chairs arranged in a circle. The bulk of the conversation is in Spanish. 

“A lot of this [wage theft] happens between white employers and Latinx workers,”  Robles tells the Scene, noting that threats to call the police or immigration services are common when employees try to fight back.

Robles says cases often include evidence of wage theft, like pay stubs that show less-than-full payment, as well as unfulfilled contracts. Beyond stolen pay, many workers also experience racism and sexual harassment on the job, and they may have video of such incidents. When a worker brings a case to the organization, Workers’ Dignity begins teaching them their rights, and volunteers begin the advocacy campaign. 

First, they send a letter to the employer about the missing wages. Then there’s a phone call. If the phone call doesn’t get results, the next step is a delegation that will accompany the worker and march to the business to deliver a letter to the owner. Each delegation member has a role: a tough-talking bulldog, a suave and sympathetic negotiator, a secretary to document and film the visit, and a timekeeper to make sure the delegation spends only about 20 minutes at the work site — they don’t want to stay too long in case the boss tries to dominate the discussion.

If the delegation doesn’t convince the boss to pay up, even more public actions may be needed. For example, the same night Petschulat and Robles made the aforementioned call, Armando Arzate and a group of volunteers were planning a rally to raise awareness for his campaign — he and his crew were owed $66,000 from a company called Orion for their concrete work on renovations at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Arzate’s campaign had already issued an online petition and announced a public demonstration at Vanderbilt, with students from the school planning to participate.

Interim co-director Jack Willey, one of the founders of the organization, says wage theft is “rampant” in industries like construction, hospitality, housekeeping, janitorial work and restaurants. Workers’ Dignity launched a series of campaigns from 2013 to 2018 devoted to helping housekeepers who worked primarily in downtown and Midtown hotels, recovering thousands of dollars in stolen payment and tips. Some of the hotels targeted in the campaign during those years included the Omni, the Best Western on Music Row and the DoubleTree. Some contracting companies at these hotels lost not just their business, but were forced out of the Nashville market, says Willey. 

Most recently, Workers’ Dignity managed to get Target to drop contractor Diversified Maintenance throughout the state of Tennessee.

Soon after the planning meeting, Arzate and his team also saw results. On Tuesday, Aug. 20, Workers’ Dignity called off the action at Vanderbilt after Orion paid him and his team the full $66,000 for their labor. A press release from Workers’ Dignity credits months of public pressure and two weeks of negotiation for the win.

“I want to thank everyone, from fellow workers to Vanderbilt students, professors, and administration in supporting our wage-theft fight,” Arzate says in the release. The statement also notes that Arzate and his crew still have another campaign against Metro Nashville Public Schools, seeking $43,000 in backpay, meaning there’s still more work to do.

Of course, wage theft isn’t unique to Tennessee. The U.S. Department of Labor recovered more than $304 million in backpay in FY2018. The department recorded 19,534 cases that same period, noting that it took an average of 100 days to resolve each complaint.

Wage-theft fights can be long affairs, but Workers’ Dignity organizer Diana Lopez emphasizes the importance of workers knowing their rights and learning how to organize and unite.

“I think it’s important ... to break the circle of feeling like the only option is to leave your job and not fight,” Lopez notes, speaking in Spanish. “I believe we as an organization push workers to know their rights. To know that it doesn’t matter what your status is, or your skin color, or where you’re from — you have rights and you can make a change at your workplace.”