Wage Theft is a silent epidemic that affects low income workers each year. Wage theft robs the government and states’ tax revenue resulting in shortage of community services. Wage theft includes violations of minimum wage laws and the Fair Labor Standard Act. Millions of workers do not receive their wages; do not get paid overtime (time and a half pay); do not get paid hours off the clock; employees are misclassified as independent contractors to avoid paying minimum wage; receive immigration and retaliation threat for asking for their fair payment; and/or simply get exploited and not paid at all.
The Northwest Arkansas strongly believes that a comprehensive immigration reform is necessary to end the abusive treatment and exploitation of undocumented immigrants. The Center advocates for a comprehensive immigration reform that provides respect, unification of families, equal educational opportunities, and protects the rights of workers. A comprehensive immigration reform represents an important step in getting Congress to repair our broken immigration system.
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The misuse of the 287 (g) program with its unfair and discriminatory practices has brought fear to our immigrant community. Unethical employers use immigration as a tool of retaliation to not compensate their employees and have threatened immigrant workers with using the police against them. The Center does not condone this unethical practice and advocates ending the 287 (g) program. The controversial 287(g) program is a provision of immigration law that enables the cooperation between state and local enforcement agencies and ICE (misused by some agencies bent on harassing immigrants) and clarifies that the authority to enforce the federal immigration law lies solely with the federal government.
The Center provides safety and health information and trainings which are designed to help employers provide better workplace protection for their employees, and to reduce losses resulting from accidents and injuries. The Center educates the community about their rights in order to reduce injuries and illnesses among workers by enhancing knowledge of their workplace rights and improving their ability to exercise those rights.
The Employee Free Choice Act would enable workers to negotiate for better wages, benefits, and working conditions by allowing a majority of employees in the workplace to form a union without retaliations, intimidation, threats, or any other venues that would hinder the workers’ free choice. It would enable collective bargaining to achieve better contracts and working conditions.
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The Center is seeking partnerships with local and state organizations to empower our mission and create a social network that would enable a fast response against the issues affecting Arkansas residents. The intent of the network is to advocate for a comprehensive immigration reform, against wage theft and 287 (g), and to provide guidance and support within each other.
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