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
- students
- corner
- story
- employer
- night
- bernal
- theft
- check
- wages
- stuck
- teams
- 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
- bernal
- bounced
- bring
- cash
- center
- centro
- check
- colorado
- completed
- conducted
- construction
- corner
- corners
- day
- demonstrates
- denver
- drove
- el
- employer
- experiences
- fee
- field
- focused
- funds
- gave
- graduate
- hiring
- home
- hour
- humanitario
- immigrant
- insisted
- interviewed
- laborer
- laborers
- late
- lot
- miles
- money
- morning
- night
- paid
- parking
- pay
- project
- recruited
- relented
- research
- site
- story
- stranded
- street
- stuck
- students
- survey
- teams
- theft
- told
- top
- total
- trained
- unpaid
- wage
- wages
- work
- worked
- worker
- workers