The current issue of the journal Industrial Relations features an article that examines the violation rates of labor standards in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Written by Ruth Milkman, Ana Luz González and Peter Ikeler, the article expands on our 2008 landmark report, Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers, which exposed systemic and routine violations of employment and labor laws in core sectors of the economy. Here is the abstract:

This article compares violations of minimum wage laws and other labour standards in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Los Angeles has the highest violation rates, due to such factors as its industrial composition and disproportionately large number of small establishments, as well as its vast unauthorised immigrant population. In addition, Los Angeles’ higher rates reflect the stricter legal standards in California. We conclude that, although stronger workplace laws and regulations are crucial, in the absence of effective enforcement, they may fail to prevent workplace violations.

The article identifies three possible reasons for the higher violate rate in Los Angeles:

• First, we have shown the importance of Los Angeles’ industrial composition, and, specifically, the over-representation in its labour market of key violation-prone industries like garment manufacturing, construction and private household service, all of which account for a greater share of the low-wage workforce in Los Angeles than in the other two cities. [...]
• Second, we have shown that the over-representation of small manufacturing establishments in Los Angeles, as well as the over-representation of employers who pay their workers in cash or by personal check (rather than by company check), plays a role in shaping the inter-city differences.
• Third, the larger proportion of Latinos and of undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles’ low-wage workforce relative to that in the other two cities is a crucial part of the explanation for that city's higher violation rates.

Read the full article: "Wage and Hour Violations in Urban Labour Markets: A Comparison of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago."