‘The system is broken’: How one community organization fights wage theft in Central Florida (2024)

Ana Espino, an advocate with the Farmworker Association of Florida, has gotten an influx of calls from people over the last year who say they weren’t paid for their work.
Or, if they work a service job, that their boss stole or mismanaged their tips.

She hears mostly from construction workers in Central Florida who do building, roofing or repair services, but also from landscaping workers, restaurant workers and agricultural workers.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, construction is one of the most common industries in which violations of wage and hour laws occur, along with food service, healthcare and retail. The federal Wage and Hour division, which enforces these laws, says they received nearly a million calls last year alleging violations.

Most of the people that Espino assists from the Farmworker Association headquarters in Apopka, just north of Orlando, are Hispanic or Latino. Most first learn about what her organization does for workers through word of mouth.

Some, she admitted, are scared to confront their employer, fearful of being fired or facing other forms of retaliation. In one case, after a man reached out to them for help, she said the man later begged them not to call his boss to ask after the issue.

The scope of wage theft in the U.S. — employers failing to pay workers all or some of what they’re lawfully owed — is a widespread problem, costing millions of working people up to $50 billion annually.

The problem, in Florida especially, is that if this does happen to you, your options for fighting it are limited. Private lawyers rarely take on wage theft cases, in part because the payout is often low. The state isn’t equipped, or eager, to do much about it either.

While Floridians can face felony charges and prison time for committing retail theft — an issue the Attorney General’s Office keenly pursues— retailers who steal their workers’ wages, at worst, generally only face the prospect of paying back wages. And that’s only if private legal counsel or the federal government opts to intervene.

“The problem is, there is no help for them,” said Payne, of those who come to her for help. “The problem is the system.”

The federal division has seven offices scattered across Florida, serving Floridians on behalf of the federal government in the absence of help from the state.

According to a division spokesperson, federal enforcement staff recovered more than $16.8 million in back wages and damages for more than 11,000 workers in Florida last fiscal year, and assessed employers more than $1 million in additional civil monetary penalties.

Even the city of Denver, Colorado, alone — which has its own labor division — proved it could do better, recovering upward of $2 million last year for over 3,500 working people, according to an annual report.

Espino told Orlando Weekly that employers in Florida accused of violating the law know the state doesn’t take wage theft seriously. Sometimes, she said they become “aggressive and defensive” in the face of accusations.

“They're not afraid to break the laws, you know what I mean? Or just not give people their money, which is unfortunate because all these people, they're trying to survive,” she said. She contends, “the system is broken.”

A 2017 report from the Economic Policy Institute found that Florida has the highest minimum wage violation rate in the country, with data suggesting that one in four low-wage workers had been paid less than minimum wage. Alexis Tsoukalas, a policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute — an EPI affiliate — told Orlando Weekly that her nonprofit is concerned the problem could get worse as Florida’s minimum wage rises.

“When Florida's first minimum wage went into effect [in 2005], we found on average people lost almost 20% of the raise to which they were entitled, about $1.32 an hour on average,” Tsoukalas explained. “So you can imagine, if you're a minimum wage worker, and you're losing a significant share of that minimum wage, how devastating that can be to your everyday life.”

Still, such programs operate best with sufficient funding and resources. And Payne says they don’t have a dedicated budget for this work.

She admits she sometimes feels out of her depth. Generally, the best the organization can do is call employers, urge them to comply with the law, or refer cases to the understaffed and overburdened federal government division.

“It frustrates me a lot,” said Payne, who’s worked with Espino on wage recovery efforts locally for about a year. “If [employers] know that there is going to be some punishment for them ... they’re not going to be doing it.”

It takes a community

The three of us — Payne, Espino and an Orlando Weekly reporter — are sitting in a conference room of the Farmworkers’ headquarters in Apopka, a diverse city in Orange County with an economy historically based in the agricultural industry.

Once the backbone of the local economy, the farming and agriculture industries’ success relied on the labor of African American, Haitian and Hispanic farm workers, many of whom suffered health issues — without reliable or affordable access to healthcare — as a result of their labor.

In the waiting room, just steps away from where we’re seated, local families with young children wait for help with one or more of a half-dozen social services the Farmworker Association provides, such as help applying for food stamps or unemployment assistance.

The group is also active in community organizing and advocacy efforts that seek to empower, not just assist, workers in their local communities. The walls inside their building are artfully decorated with photos of farmworkers, and banners uplifting national and international movements for health equity and food sovereignty, like La Via Campesina.

The Farmworker Association was one of several community groups that helped advocate for Florida’s first local wage recovery program in Miami-Dade County, established in 2010.

In the absence of help from the state government, this local program, established through an ordinance, helps settle “wage disputes” involving workers and private employers in the county.

Over the years, the program has recovered millions of dollars in owed wages for thousands of people. Advocates in other cities and counties, inspired by this effort, later successfully organized for similar wage recovery programs in Palm Beach, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Alachua, Broward and Osceola counties.

Notably, there are no such programs in Orlando or Orange County, which rely on the labor of largely low-wage workers in the high-violation tourism and hospitality industries.

Unsurprisingly, deep-pocketed business lobbying groups — such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce — have opposed such efforts to establish local programs. Over a decade ago, the Florida Retail Federation filed a lawsuit to try to get rid of Miami-Dade’s program, but was unsuccessful.

The Florida Retail Federation, in collaboration with other business groups, has supported bills in the state Legislature dating back to 2011 that have sought to ban such programs. So far, the effort to get rid of local wage recovery programs through the state Legislature has also been unsuccessful.

‘We just don’t have enough manpower’

Outside of government intervention, Floridians also have the option of pursuing a civil action against an employer through a labor or employment attorney. Payne, however, said that private firms rarely take on wage theft cases because they’re unlikely to get much out of it.

“The lawyers don’t want to take these cases because this is not a lot of money,” she said.

Ryan Morgan, an Orlando-based attorney and co-chair of Morgan & Morgan’s Employee Rights Group, confirmed the acceptance rate for wage theft cases among law firms is low.

“Our acceptance rates on the wage and hour cases are below 10 percent,” Morgan told Orlando Weekly, adding that this is in line with acceptance rates of other firms.

His law firm, Morgan & Morgan, receives “thousands of calls” a month for wage theft cases, he said. Some, they determine, are less winnable than others, if the chance for wage recovery is low. And not all are “economically viable.”

“Even we just don't have enough manpower and hours of the day to handle every case. And so when you're looking at it, you do have to make difficult choices at times,” Morgan admitted. “And quite frankly, it sucks.”

“Even we just don't have enough manpower and hours of the day to handle every case,” one attorney shared. “And quite frankly, it sucks.” tweet this

The only real way to combat such clauses, he said, is to find a large group of workers who are willing to come forward. Arbitration in that case can become “exceedingly expensive” for the employer.

“That will force them to the table to actually talk and try to correct the problem, versus just, kind of putting their head in the sand a little bit,” he said.

Unlike private law firms, the U.S. Labor Department doesn’t have to abide by arbitration agreements. They can sue employers and still represent groups of employees.

“Same thing with the state Department of Labor. We don't have one here,” Morgan pointed out. “But in the states that do, they too, can get around those arbitration agreements.”

Roadblocks to progress

On a federal level, the Biden administration has sought to increase the Wage and Hour Division’s budget to support worker protection initiatives. Biden has also requested that Congress enact policy changes to increase penalties for those who violate labor laws, in order to help deter violations.

According to Bloomberg, the politically divided U.S. Congress, however, hasn’t been swift to take action on the president’s pro-worker wish list. Despite some bipartisan support for increasing penalties for child labor violations, the administration has continued to suffer “roadblocks.”

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed