[act-ma] Reminder: Theft of Property & Labor | Saturday, 4/21 @ 3PM

[Center for Marxist Education]

*Center for Marxist Education *
550 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd Floor Cambridge, MA, 02139


*Saturday, April 21 | 3:00 – 5:00 PMTheft of Property & Labor*
Bill Okerman, Needham Area Immigration Justice Task Force
<http://www.immigrationneedham.org/>
Point Person, Wage Theft Initiative
<http://www.immigrationneedham.org/campaigns/wage-theft/>

​We will discuss the origins and legislative history of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts's so-called "wage and hour laws" and the gutting of the
enforcement of those laws that began in the early 1990s. I will present and
discuss evidence to show three things that are at the core of this
fundamental failure of governance: (1) that the Massachusetts courts have
repeatedly misconstrued the Commonwealth's wage and hour laws so as to gut
their enforcement; (2) that the public officers of the Commonwealth who
since the early 1990s have had the statutory duty to enforce the
Commonwealth's wage and hour laws have repeatedly and systematically failed
to carry out that mandate; and (3) that the Massachusetts legislature has
failed to ensure that the wage and hour laws that it has enacted on behalf
of the people of the Commonwealth are effectively enforced.