Volunteers and staff with Worker Justice Wisconsin pose with the group’s banner after an action Friday to call attention to wage theft. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
A Wisconsin group that helps workers who have experienced wage theft is broadening its tactics to address complaints of employer misconduct.
On Friday staff members of Worker Justice Wisconsin, along with a group of community supporters, showed up at a Middleton contractor’s office where a former employee demanded payment of unpaid overtime wages.
The public action represents a new step for Worker Justice Wisconsin, according to executive director Rebecca Meier-Rao.
Based in Madison and supported by a group of churches and other religious bodies, Worker Justice Wisconsin has spent the last couple of decades assisting workers who don’t have unions with complaints about their treatment on the job.
For much of its existence the organization has worked one-on-one with individuals, helping them navigate the process of filing complaints with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and other agencies.
“The prevalence of wage theft is astronomical,” Meier-Rao told the Wisconsin Examiner. She added that it’s a nationwide problem. “Every year just millions and millions of dollars are stolen from workers.”
People of color and immigrants are the most likely to be targets, she said. The organization does not discuss the immigration status of those who come to the group for help.
In 2024, the group enabled 103 workers to recover more than $328,000 in wages they were shorted by their employers, Meier-Rao said, but those successes represent “just a fraction” of the wage theft incidents that go on each year. The resolved wage theft cases in 2024 were just some of the 155 that Worker Justice Wisconsin opened that year, involving more than $531,000 in unpaid wages.
“I’m sure the actual amount of wage theft was much higher,” Meier-Rao said.
Not only do those cases deprive people of their rightful earnings, they also cost government the taxes on those earnings, she said.
DWD investigates wage theft complaints and will calculate what is owed to an employee, but “there’s almost no teeth if the employer doesn’t pay,” she added. “That is not going to deter the problem from happening.”
While someone who steals from a store or a warehouse can be charged with theft, wage theft in Wisconsin “is treated not as a criminal offense but a civil offense,” Meier-Rao said.
Worker Justice Wisconsin’s tactics are evolving as it looks for new ways to address the issue. “We’ve been shifting from an advocacy organization to a worker power organization,” Meier-Rao said.
About a year ago the organization began planning to take public actions to call attention to the wage theft incidents it has investigated. The group developed leaders among the workers it has supported and began building a broader support group — a “rapid response network” that has enlisted 120 community members, union activists and other allies.
By directly confronting employers, Meier-Rao said, the organization wants to draw the attention of the public and policymakers to wage theft, encouraging them to enact tougher laws against the practice.
On Friday morning, Worker Justice Wisconsin organizer Robert Christl, Meier-Rao and a small crowd of the organization’s rapid-response volunteers drove up to the storefront of Stone Concepts in a Middleton industrial park.
They were there with Crescencio Albino, who worked for four years building and installing stone countertops at the home design and remodeling contractor.
Albino, who no longer works for the company, said that he had put in extensive overtime hours, but was paid only his regular hourly wage, not the time-and-a-half premium required under state and federal laws. A DWD investigation determined he was owed $6,875 in unpaid premium wages for the last two years of overtime work.
Outside the Stone Concepts office, with Albino at his side, Christl spoke to an employee and asked if the owner was on site. The employer said he was not, and Christl asked him to convey a letter to the owner. The letter called for Albino to be paid in full within two weeks.
Gathering at the other end of the block afterward, Meier-Rao, Christl and Albino addressed supporters. Christl served as interpreter as Albino spoke in Spanish.
Albino said he pursued the case with DWD after trying several times to resolve the issue directly with the business. Despite the DWD’s finding, Albino said the business owner has still not paid him.
“The employer wanted to pay the money already owed to me with a payment plan of six months, which I rejected,” Albino said. “It’s hard for me to understand why, in such a clear cut situation, I have to go through this whole process to get what is mine.”
He added: “If I hadn’t honored my obligation, or if I had stolen from my boss, the consequences would have been immediate and severe, but it seems that when it’s workers like me who are affected, justice isn’t applied equally. This seems wrong to me.”
Meier-Rao told the group that the action and others like it were aimed at throwing a public spotlight on a problem that has long gone unnoticed.
“For more than two decades, we have helped hundreds of workers file claims with the Department of Workforce Development to [recoup] unpaid wages,” Meier-Rao said.
“Although we have had many successful individual cases, the harsh reality is that this approach does not change the system. No amount of complaints filed will put a stop to wage theft.”
To accomplish that, “we have to organize inside and outside the workplace,” Meier-Rao said. “We have to be public. We have to make noise. We have to build collective power. That is why it’s so important that you are all here today.”
Responding Saturday to an email inquiry the Wisconsin Examiner sent Friday to Stone Concepts, Andreia Nogueira wrote that “we are not refusing to make a payment. I am sending the payment to my lawyer.”
As of Sunday, Worker Justice Wisconsin had not received a response on behalf of the company, Meier-Rao said.
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