Here is an exciting
opportunity for a fall internship!
Also, if you are
interested in taking the HIST-A 379 course on US Labor History in the fall,
there will be an option to add 1 credit of PACE-C 410 to that course for
projects such as the ones listed below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bloomington Jobs With
Justice, Wage Theft Committee
Fall 2012 Internship
Jobs With Justice (JWJ) [www.jwj.org] is a national social
justice organization that brings together labor unions, faith groups, community
organizations, and student activists to fight for working people’s rights.
Prospective interns can meet with Prof. Lichtenstein if they
have further questions. Please contact him at lichtens@indiana.edu, or 812-855-7504.
His office is BH816.
The Bloomington Chapter of JWJ recently established a “Wage
Theft Committee.” Wage theft consists of employers’ violating local, state, and
federal minimum wage laws; forcing employees to work uncompensated overtime or
“off the clock”; misclassifying employees in order to underpay them; and a host
of other methods of cheating workers of their hard-earned pay. Frequently the
most vulnerable workers—immigrants, non-English speakers, single mothers,
youth, unorganized low-wage workers, temp workers—are the most easily taken
advantage of by employers.
The wage theft initiative seeks 1-2 interns committed to
social justice, workers’ rights, and immigrants’ rights who will help JWJ to
investigate, expose, and combat these practices in the Bloomington community.
Interns will engage in some of the following projects, depending on their
skills and interests:
·
Researching relevant federal, state, and local
laws regarding wage theft
·
Preparing a brochure explaining to workers their
rights and their possible recourse if they believe they are a victim of wage
theft
·
Identifying, collecting and documenting
individual stories of workers who have been victims of wage theft
·
Working with local labor unions, faith
organizations, and social service agencies to identify potential information
clearinghouses on wage theft
·
Publicizing the issue of wage theft in the local
community by conducting informal workshops and/or preparing a PACE “Issues
Forum”
·
Creating an informational webpage for the JWJ
Wage Theft Committee
·
Researching and writing a grant proposal for
long-term funding of a Bloomington area workers’ center
The relevant skills for this internship include the ability
to conduct independent research, computer skills to create a publication and/or
webpage, comfort with meeting and talking to diverse
groups of people, interview skills, and ideally, bilingualism (Spanish,
Portuguese, Tagalog, Korean are all possibilities).
The intern will be supervised by Prof. Alex Lichtenstein of
the history department. Prof. Lichtenstein will be teaching A379 US Labor
History in the fall semester, and students may want to consider taking that
class in conjunction with this internship.
Recommended readings for the internship include Kim Bobo, Wage Theft in America and Barbara
Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed.
Students should discuss
earning internship credit with their departments or the Career Development
Center.
