Precarious Claims by Shannon Gleeson

Author:Shannon Gleeson [Gleeson, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520963603
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2016-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

GATEKEEPERS

Once workers move forward to file a claim, they must prepare for the labyrinth of bureaucracies that stand between them and the restitution they seek. After filing, claimants (and their advocates) will come face to face with a range of gatekeepers, including representatives of labor standards enforcement agencies as well as a whole host of private companies and experts enlisted to verify and manage their claim.

Government Bureaucrats

The first set of gatekeepers a worker will likely confront after initiating a formal claim is one of many frontline agency administrators who screen applicants and guide them through the initial stages of the claim. If they get that far, workers will also come face to face with hearing officers, who evaluate the facts of the claim and ultimately attempt to resolve the dispute through mediation or a hearing. Private sector ancillaries are especially common in the workers’ compensation system, and while presented as customer service representatives at workers’ disposal, their job is often to surveil workers and limit their monetary compensation.

At the beginning of a claim, one of the primary tasks of frontline staff is to determine whether a worker’s general complaint falls under the specific protections within the agency’s purview. Workers may understandably be confused by the existing matrix of labor standards enforcement jurisdictions, and they may be disappointed to find that their perceived injustice is not covered by a particular, or any, agency. Workers also frequently recounted their frustration in having to track down the right agency to cover multiple grievances, ranging from rampant wage theft (the California Labor Commissioner), to workplace harassment (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), to recurrent workplace injuries that required medical treatment (the Division of Workers’ Compensation).

Workers must affirmatively demonstrate a violation of existing law in order to establish a claim. Given the difficulty of doing so, workers with multiple claims often take, or are advised to take, the path of least resistance during the claims process. Certain cases, such as unpaid wage claims, are far easier to make than, say, cases against unjust termination. Workers who attempt to proactively address retaliatory threats are frequently told that there is nothing to be done until they are actually fired, and even so only if it is undeniably clear that the firing is in response to their attempts to assert their rights. Claimants with no substantiating evidence are necessarily turned away, even when it is clear that the employer is cleverly averting the law. For example, Pepe was a nighttime janitor whose boss regularly put his overtime hours on the timesheet of Pepe’s daughter, who also worked at the company, to avoid paying extra.16 As Pepe explained of his efforts to rectify the situation: “When I got to the agency, they told me that the checks had to be in my name if I wanted to claim overtime. Since I had my daughter’s [checks], they said that they could not do anything unless she testified on her own behalf.” She was afraid do to so, and, as a result, the administrative bureaucracy was ultimately useless to him.

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