Planting Seeds of Justice: Combating Wage Theft among South Florida’s Plant Nursery Workers

Wage theft, or the lack of payment of a worker’s partial or full salary through systematic or unintentional action, is often experienced by migratory workers in the United States. Throughout the nation many cases go unreported due to workers’ lack of English skills or because of ignorance of basic labor rights and laws; others stay silent in order to avoid unwanted attention to their lack of legal migratory status; while others find themselves threatened by the very employers who benefit from their labor. In South Florida, cases of wage theft are particularly detrimental, as several factors merge to create and perpetuate its occurrence. There, the existence of a large low-wage workforce, a large immigrant population, and a variety of economic, political, and global forces interact to intensify the issue.

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