When Quitters Win: The Great Recession gives rise to labor claims

By Jaymee Cuti of Portland, Oregon. Jaymee is a former staff writer news editor for Just Out newspaper.

Sticky mats are lined head-to-toe at a 10 a.m. yoga class in Northeast Portland. Students look annoyed as they negotiate for space in the already swampy room. The studio is called Bikram Yoga of India, I reason, yet the overcrowded class seems to resemble that sweltering nation a bit too much for the comfort of these participants.
Since I left my job in mid-March, I’ve taken advantage of the newfound freedom from a schedule anchored by 9 and 5. And I’ve had plenty of company.

Leaving class, electrolyte depletion leads me to a Fred Meyer parking lot, full at 11:30 am. As I jockey for a space, craving watermelon, I think: Who are all you people, and why aren’t you at work?

I did say I left my job. Deliberately. In the worst economic recession since the ‘30s, in a state with—say it with me—the second highest unemployment rate in the nation, I removed my prints of John Kennedy, Mother Teresa, Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn from my avocado-colored office and walked out. In the commotion, I left my Rolodex behind.

Staging a walkout at Just Out newspaper, where I worked for four years as the news editor, may have been a brash move in a crashing economy. Yet my situation mirrors that of thousands of Oregonian workers, whose treatment in increasingly cash-strapped workplaces has contributed to a mighty rise in labor disputes. “The hardest part of the recession, from a worker’s standpoint, started last November, when we had more inquiries about workers’ rights issues,” said Craig Spivey, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Employment.

I remember researching my walkout in February by calling the Oregon Department of Employment and Bureau of Labor and Industries for advice. “Is it really quitting if you stop getting paid?” I asked. Back then, the idea of quitting a journalism job in publishing- and employment-starved Portland sounded only slightly more ludicrous than working for free.

The answer was yes, if there was more work to do, and I chose not to do it, I was quitting, and I was burdened to prove that I left with cause. My fight for unemployment benefits, which my former employer contested, was dogged. I filed a three-inch thick wage complaint with the Bureau of Labor and Industries, showing how my employer repeatedly reneged on promises to pay staff, but still found cash to pay other bills—“inflexible creditors,” as she called them, such as the printer or Internet provider.

On the day that I left, I was owed $3,800 in back pay, which was calculated in the same meeting that my employer announced, “Paydays have been discontinued,” since we hadn’t been paid in full on a payday in six months.

Neither of those circumstances, I learned, were legal, and the unemployment office has been mailing me steady paychecks ever since.

My comrades in the walkout weren’t as lucky. Their unemployment claims were initially denied and it wasn’t until they argued their cases in administrative hearings that a judge ruled, “Claimant’s reason for quitting was such that a reasonable and prudent person of normal sensitivity exercising ordinary common sense would leave work.”
Some workers stay in equally “grave” working conditions, as the judge described our situation, filing complaints with the Bureau of Labor and Industries for issues ranging from lack of pay to discrimination.

Insiders at Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries corroborate the trend Spivey spotted at the state employment office: Workers’ rights inquiries have increased tremendously in the last year.

“In a down economy, the civil rights division typically sees an increase in discrimination complaints and in particular, age discrimination complaints,” said to Kate Newhall, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. The civil rights division has seen between 400 and 500 more inquiries per month than in the same period last year. Newhall says the division processes approximately 2,500 inquiries per month, up from 2,000 per month last year.

The wage and hour division at the Bureau of Labor and Industries has seen 16 percent more claims in the past year; 2,452 were received through April 2009, compared to 2,114 in 2008. Some agencies have an onslaught of complaints against employers that workers had been too hesitant to report back when they had secure jobs.

“Someone who is suddenly laid off learns that they should have gotten paid time-and-a-half for all hours over 40. They were afraid to come forward because they didn’t want to lose their jobs over it. [Now], nothing is stopping them from enforcing the rights they had all along,” said Meg Heaton, an attorney with Northwest Workers Justice Project, which provides legal representation for low-wage immigrant and other nonstandard workers. “This is typical of the restaurant industry, where we’ve been seeing a lot of people laid off lately.”

Northwest Workers Justice Project’s workload now exceeds its capacity. Six months ago, it cut intake clinics, where potential new cases are evaluated, from weekly to bi-weekly. “We ended up accepting a lot of new cases, which led to a workload so high that we had to cut back on intake clinics.”

Despite the rise in labor complaints, some workers’ fear of being seen as troublemakers makes them think twice about taking legal action against deadbeat bosses.

“There was an agriculture business in bankruptcy and it looked like the company owed workers a lot of unpaid wages. We talked to some workers about doing a class-action lawsuit, but there was a lot of reluctance about making waves—even though they didn’t work for the business anymore. They didn’t want to tarnish their reputation as good workers,” said Heaton.

Taking on my employer in a recession was an onerous but gratifying choice. Though the celebration was fleeting—I’m nearly halfway through my six-month unemployment allowance and the Magic Eight Ball predicts my future in local journalism as “hazy”—I’m proud to have stood up for myself.

What to Do If You’re Getting Shafted at Work

Various recourses exist for shafted workers and ethical employers.
The Bureau of Labor and Industries has developed a technical assistance seminar called “Doing Business in a Down Economy,” which details topics such as appropriate downsizing procedures, handling layoffs, reducing employee benefits and furlough days.
Heaton suggests that workers discuss employment complaints with a lawyer, the Bureau of Labor and Industries or an industry-governing licensing board. “If workers really want to ensure long-terms rights on the job, starting a union in their workplace that protects your rights and your coworkers’ rights is the way to go,” she said.
Until the bloodletting slows, I’ll be skulking around the city, writing for sport from WiFi-equipped coffee shop “offices,” in solidarity with the jobless and trapped workers, fellow veterans of The Great Recession.

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR’s employment law hotline is 866-487-9243. THE OREGON BUREAU OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES is at 971-673-0761 or www.oregon.gov/BOLI. THE OREGON DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT is at 800-237-3710 or www.employment.oregon.gov. The NORTHWEST WORKERS’ JUSTICE PROJECT is at 503-525-8454 or www.nwjp.org