full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rebecca Galemba: How employers steal from workers -- and get away with it

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Since 2015, my research has focused on immigrant day laborers' experiences with wage tfeht in Colorado. I've also trained taems of graduate setdutns as field workers and taken them out to street corners and Denver's worker center El Centro Humanitario. In total, we interviewed 170 day laborers and conducted a follow-up survey of over 400. Day laborer Bernal's srtoy demonstrates how wage theft happens. Bernal was recruited at a street ceronr hiring site in devenr, Colorado, by an employer who then drove him 70 miles away for a construction project. benarl worked from nine in the morning until late at nghit. When the work was completed, his employer didn't pay him. What's more, he stranded him in the parking lot over an hour from home. The employer told him, "Tomorrow I'll come back and pay you, I didn't bring any money." When Bernal insisted on being paid, the eloeypmr relented and gave me a check. But when Bernal went to cash that check, it had no funds. So then he was stcuk with a bounced chcek fee on top of his unpaid wgeas.

Open Cloze

Since 2015, my research has focused on immigrant day laborers' experiences with wage _____ in Colorado. I've also trained _____ of graduate ________ as field workers and taken them out to street corners and Denver's worker center El Centro Humanitario. In total, we interviewed 170 day laborers and conducted a follow-up survey of over 400. Day laborer Bernal's _____ demonstrates how wage theft happens. Bernal was recruited at a street ______ hiring site in ______, Colorado, by an employer who then drove him 70 miles away for a construction project. ______ worked from nine in the morning until late at _____. When the work was completed, his employer didn't pay him. What's more, he stranded him in the parking lot over an hour from home. The employer told him, "Tomorrow I'll come back and pay you, I didn't bring any money." When Bernal insisted on being paid, the ________ relented and gave me a check. But when Bernal went to cash that check, it had no funds. So then he was _____ with a bounced _____ fee on top of his unpaid _____.

Solution

  1. students
  2. corner
  3. story
  4. employer
  5. night
  6. bernal
  7. theft
  8. check
  9. wages
  10. stuck
  11. teams
  12. denver

Original Text

Since 2015, my research has focused on immigrant day laborers' experiences with wage theft in Colorado. I've also trained teams of graduate students as field workers and taken them out to street corners and Denver's worker center El Centro Humanitario. In total, we interviewed 170 day laborers and conducted a follow-up survey of over 400. Day laborer Bernal's story demonstrates how wage theft happens. Bernal was recruited at a street corner hiring site in Denver, Colorado, by an employer who then drove him 70 miles away for a construction project. Bernal worked from nine in the morning until late at night. When the work was completed, his employer didn't pay him. What's more, he stranded him in the parking lot over an hour from home. The employer told him, "Tomorrow I'll come back and pay you, I didn't bring any money." When Bernal insisted on being paid, the employer relented and gave me a check. But when Bernal went to cash that check, it had no funds. So then he was stuck with a bounced check fee on top of his unpaid wages.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
wage theft 15
day laborers 14
street corner 3
immigrant day 3
experienced wage 3
day labor 2
independent contractors 2
theft impacts 2
corner hiring 2
labor rights 2
rights enforcement 2
working conditions 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
experienced wage theft 3
wage theft impacts 2
street corner hiring 2
labor rights enforcement 2

Important Words

  1. bernal
  2. bounced
  3. bring
  4. cash
  5. center
  6. centro
  7. check
  8. colorado
  9. completed
  10. conducted
  11. construction
  12. corner
  13. corners
  14. day
  15. demonstrates
  16. denver
  17. drove
  18. el
  19. employer
  20. experiences
  21. fee
  22. field
  23. focused
  24. funds
  25. gave
  26. graduate
  27. hiring
  28. home
  29. hour
  30. humanitario
  31. immigrant
  32. insisted
  33. interviewed
  34. laborer
  35. laborers
  36. late
  37. lot
  38. miles
  39. money
  40. morning
  41. night
  42. paid
  43. parking
  44. pay
  45. project
  46. recruited
  47. relented
  48. research
  49. site
  50. story
  51. stranded
  52. street
  53. stuck
  54. students
  55. survey
  56. teams
  57. theft
  58. told
  59. top
  60. total
  61. trained
  62. unpaid
  63. wage
  64. wages
  65. work
  66. worked
  67. worker
  68. workers