Enforcing the Minimum Wage and Employer Sanctions

Abstract

This article examines the interaction between the enforcement of the minimum wage and of employer sanctions—fining employers for hiring illegal aliens—in Los Angeles County. Los Angeles was selected because there is, proportionately, more immigration, legal and illegal, there than in any other urban county in the nation, and work in the secondary labor market has become progressively less well paid with the passage of time, two trends said to be intertwined. The roles of four groups of agencies are examined: unions, community-based organizations, employment standards agencies, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The expected interagency cooperation to raise wages for those at the bottom of the labor market was not found. Further, resources for enforcing the minimum wage turned out to be minimal, with social service agencies and foundations much more interested in a more fashionable, if less pervasive, labor market problem, namely, sanction-caused discrimination against foreign-appearing workers.

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References

1. See, for example, Julian L. Simon , The Economic Consequences of Immigration (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989).

2. It is generally conceded that the geographical distribution of all undocumented aliens in the country was roughly similar to the distribution of the segment of that population seeking legalization.

3. For the geographical distribution of immigrants, see U.S., Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service , 1991 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturlization Service (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 1992), tab. 18 and predecessor tables. For the distribution of legalization applicants, see ibid., tab. 23.

4. Data in these three paragraphs are largely from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and can be found in Paul Ong , The Widening Divide: Income Inequality and Poverty in Los Angeles (Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Research Group on the Los Angeles Economy, 1989).

5. Commenting on this point, Steven T. Nutter, Western Regional Director and Vice President of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (AFL-CIO), wrote to me on 30 Sept. 1991, “The City Attorney and County District Attorney essentially ignore criminal violations of the state labor code, which they are charged with enforcing. The City Fire Department does not conduct systematic inspections of large decaying buildings in the garment district of Los Angeles that house most of the contractors. The State has continued to reduce the staffing and budget of the state agencies which are charged with enforcing the law, while continually adding additional duties to their charge.”

6. Thomas Muller and Thomas J. Espenshade , The Fourth Wave: California's Newest Immigrants (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1985), pp. 53, 148.

idem , The Border Crossers: People Who Live in Mexico and Work in the United States (Washington, DC: National Technical Information Service, 1970).

8. I am indebted to its ranking attorney, Anthony Mischel, for a thorough explanation of the different powers and patterns of the federal and state employment standards agencies discussed in this article.

9. At this point, one reviewer of an earlier version of this article remarked, “The public interest bar has a sure instinct for the capillary.”

10.

10. For more on this, see David S. North and James S. Holt , “The Apple Industry in New York and Pennsylvania,” in Appendix I: Case Studies and Research Reports Prepared for the Commission on Agricultural Workers 1989-1993 to Accompany the Report of the Commission, by Commission on Agricultural Workers (Washington, DC: Commission on Agricultural Workers, 1993.) Dr. Holt and I have a friendly disagreement on the utility of the H-2A program; Dr. Holt supports it.

11.

11. This fund is supported by fees paid by those seeking decisions—naturalizations, petitions, legalization—from INS, and it is used to support these decision-making activities.

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12. This suggestion, certain to encounter substantial resistance from management, is part of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union legislative package on labor standards.