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Tag: Unfair Competition

Tag: Unfair Competition

Sinking Underground: The Growing Informal Economy in California Construction

September 1, 2014 / By Yvonne Yen Liu and Daniel Flaming / United Brotherhood of Carpenters

Construction is a $152 billion industry in California, employing 895,000 workers. One out of six construction workers in the Golden State, that is 143,900, sank into the informal economy in 2011. Informal construction workers earn about half of what their formal counterparts bring home and their households are three times more likely to live in poverty.

Repaying Hospitality: Economic Impacts of Raising Hotel Workers Wages and Benefits in the City of Los Angeles

December 1, 2013 / By Patrick Burns and Daniel Flaming / Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

A $15.37 minimum wage for Los Angeles hotels with 100 or more rooms would affect over 5,000 low-wage hotel workers, including housekeepers, janitors, banquet servers, bellhops and desk clerks. The twenty year trend for hotel growth and rising hotel occupancy and revenue support the finding that the proposed new minimum wage is feasible for the hotel industry in Los Angeles.

Photograph by Karen Ambrose Hickey for the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, "Somos Unos" Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on May 2, 2011, taken on May 1, 2011. Protected under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED license.

Workers Without Rights

May 6, 2002 / By Pascale Joassart and Daniel Flaming / Economic Roundtable

The informal economy produces legal goods and services that are not effectively regulated. Such activities can give rise to abuses by employers who fail to respect basic labor, safety, immigration, and tax laws, leaving workers without rights. By definition the informal economy is hidden "under the table" and "off the books." However, by comparing different sources of employment data we can identify industries where a significant share of jobs appear to be unreported. Industry characteristics such as worker demographics can also be used as an additional indicator of informal employment.