MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Wage Theft
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison joins us tonight to talk about this. Congressman, I appreciate your time.
Wage theft, we don`t -- we hear a lot about minimum wage being raised but we don`t hear much about wage theft. How prevalent is it?
REP. KEITH ELLISON, (D) MINNESOTA: It`s a serious and very prevalent problem. As you pointed out that senate committee did that study, found that as many as up to a third of federal contractors had some sort of wage theft violation in their background.
It is a serious problem. And when you look at it nationwide and taken all low-wage workers, they lose on average in the neighborhood of $2,500 a year, which is a lot of money if you`re making $7.25 an hour.
SCHULTZ: Sure.
ELLISON: So, you know, stuff like, you know, people making you work without -- but did not punch in. Not getting credit for the -- not getting your breaks that you`re supposed to get during an eight-day shift, breaks and lunch time, but then they deduct it out of your pay.
SCHULTZ: Well .
ELLISON: And then .
SCHULTZ: You have become a target of criticism because of this.
ELLISON: Yup.
SCHULTZ: The Associated Builders and Contractors claim that this amendment that you`ve championed would be "a job killer" and would create a blacklist for contractors. What`s your response to that?
ELLISON: My response is simply this. The people of the United States, the taxpayers in the United States believe that our hard-earned money ought to go to contractors who treat their employees fairly.
There are enough contractors out there who are willing to do a fair job and a fair wage by their employees so that we should do business with them, not those who have a demonstrated history wage theft.
I don`t understand trade association that will not try to train its members to be fair and honest and straight up with their worker -- with their members and instead wants to stand on the side of wage theft?
SCHULTZ: Does the .
ELLISON: That`s kind of shocking to me.
SCHULTZ: Does the restaurant industry deserve special scrutiny here?
ELLISON: Of course they do. I mean, the fact is many of the people who complained to us the most come from that industry. Now, I don`t want to say that everybody is doing it. In fact, I argued that not everybody is doing it and the federal government should do business with the people who are not doing wage theft.
There are lots of them. And we should -- the federal government, Uncle Sam should help set high labor standards, not a race to the bottom.We ought to be the place that sets good solid labor standards that can radiate throughout the rest of the economy. After all, the federal government is a largest purchaser in the country.
SCHULTZ: So you think that the federal government should be the one to set higher labor standards in the private sector as well?
ELLISON: Absolutely. I mean, I think that if we`re going to say it`s wrong to cheat workers out of their pay, I mean, the last people -- the last entity that should be doing it should be the entity that represents all of us, which is the federal government.
We should be the place where good solid fair dealing is the order of the day. And I don`t care if you`re a Republican or Democrat. If a penny is earned, that penny has got to be paid. And anybody who says otherwise is not fair and they don`t deserve to have a federal contract.
SCHULTZ: All right. Congressman Keith Ellison, you did get Republicans onboard with us as well. Did you not?
ELLISON: Yes, we did.
SCHULTZ: OK.
ELLISON: Yeah, we did but we have a hearing tomorrow, 2:00 and you can
live stream it with dems.gov/live. You can see it.
SCHULTZ: Good to have you with us, Congressman.
Source