April 27, 2015. WCSC News.
NORTH CHARLESTON, SC –‘We want every worker paid what they’re due’.
That was the chant of more than 2,000 people who came to the Charleston Area Justice Ministry’s or CAJM’s rally on unfair wages Monday night.
The rally is for their annual Nehemiah Action, which targets a social issue in the county and attempts to create a plan to fix it.
“Too many people are not being paid for the work that they do in our community,” Sandra Davis of New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church said. “In fact, it is something of an epidemic and that epidemic is wage theft.”
The organization is made up of 27 interfaith congregations. 50 percent of CAJM’s public surveys on fair pay showed at least one violation.
“Some people were shorted pay because their boss under counted their hours,” Rev. Megan Gray of Cokesbury United Methodist Church said. “Still others were not paid time and a half for overtime as required by law.”
CAJM’s plan asks Charleston County to add an a lawyer to help with wage theft and designate one day a month for judges to only hear wage theft cases.
Several government leaders who attended all supported it.
“This task is our task. This is our vision. We see through these efforts and so much more to do justice.”
“We want every worker. Paid what they’re due.”
