U.S. companies are stealing pay from low-wage workers, report says
CBSN
On a Tuesday afternoon last June, Humberto was yanking old wires from the walls of a middle school in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, when his cellphone rang. Humberto's wife, who had just returned from her weekly trip to the grocery store, was on the line.
"Our account is negative," she said. The 45-year-old electrician, who spoke on the condition that he be identified by his middle name because he is undocumented, had been working 10 hours a day, six days a week as part of a $200 million renovation project. This was how he learned that his $1,250 paycheck had bounced.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.