What would you do if someone stole your pay check?

Posted by Natalia Jaramillo

I would get really angry, and then, very worried. How will I pay rent and bills, buy food or gas? Basic things. It is certainly a problem. But, imagine that someone steals your pay check continuously, week by week. And what is worse, the thief is your own boss! That is Rudy’s story.

Rudy Xutuc is a gardener and landscaper who worked at a nursery in Homestead. His boss started delaying his weekly salary little by little, until he finally stopped paying. When the total amount owed reached $4,800, Rudy asked for the money he earned with hard work, but the employer refused to pay.

Don’t get confused, this story does have a happy ending. Thanks to a Wage Theft Ordinance that the Miami-Dade County Commission approved earlier this year, Rudy was able to file a claim through a the Department of Small Business Development and … the employer had to pay back every cent!!!

This has been happening for a very long time to many Floridian workers. Not only when employers don’t pay the salaries their workers have fairly earned, but also when workers are paid below the minimum wage, not paid for overtime, forced to work off the clock, have their time cards altered or are misclassified as independent contractors.

And this problem affects almost everyone, from restaurant employees and agricultural workers, to teachers, accountants and architects.

According to a research done by RISEP, what is most impressive is that, between September 2008 until March 2010, there has been a total loss of close to $4 million in unpaid wages!

That’s why Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners declared today, November 18^th, as the Day Against Wage Theft. So we can remember every year that wage theft is not acceptable in Miami-Dade.

And all this has been possible thanks to the South Florida Wage Theft task Force. Congratulations!!!