No Justice! No Peace!
Union carpenters are taking part in a series of events at Tufts University to educate school administration about the issues of wage theft in the construction industry. At “rolling rallies” and with leaflets and banners, members are warning Tufts that ignoring these issues is essentially inviting them to campus.
Wage theft is more common than armed robbery in our country and three times as costly to the economy. Here in Massachusetts, wage theft costs individual workers more than $1 billion a year in earned wages. This hurts our communities and all the state’s taxpayers. Institutions like Tufts, who hold tremendous wealth and have significant resources at their disposal, can avoid contributing to wage, if they choose. We hope they will.
The message to Tufts on wage theft is simple:
—Wage theft is bad.
–Don’t do business with people that commit wage theft.
–Don’t ignore wage theft.
–Remember that one of our three favorite words is “agitate.”
Because they fund projects (the “power of the purse”) Tufts can ensure that only responsible contractors and subcontractors work on campus.