About the Project

The SIF Project is a research study funded by the Sociological Initiatives Foundation that the Washtenaw County Worker Center (WCWC) began in March 2007 and completed about one year later with 218 usable surveys.  Worker members and student volunteers interviewed people living in relatively low-cost housing in Washtenaw County.  The project served several purposes.

First, in the course of explaining the point of the survey and how the information gathered would be used, surveyors informed those interviewed about the existence and goals of the WCWC and invited them to come to the next WCWC membership meeting. 

Second, it allowed us to gauge the scope and severity of legal violations and chronic problems in the four types of low-wage service work examined: restaurant, cleaning, retail, and home improvement services.  

Third, it enabled us to identify the best and the worst employers in each sector, vital information for building alliances and identifying targets.  

What We Found

Among many other things, we found that two thirds of all those interviewed had worked in the restaurant sector at some point during the previous three years.  The next largest type of employment -- 13% had done this sort of work over the same period -- was cleaning work.

Among the workers in our restaurant sector subsample, 40% were not paid overtime when they worked over 40 hours in a week, 12% were not paid the full amount owed, and 25% reported that they had either been disciplined themselves, or seen others in their workplace disciplined, in a discriminatory fashion (i.e., women disciplined more severely than men, people of color more severely than white people, etc).  These are all legal violations.  As well, there are chronic problems that are not illegal: 83% had no health insurance from their employer, 91% had no paid sick days, 24% had worked while sick, and 25% had been hurt on the job.

In our cleaning sector subsample, the situation was even worse in most of these areas: 60% were not paid overtime when they worked over 40 hours in a week, 22% were not always paid on time, 6% were not paid the full amount owed, and 28% reported discriminatory discipline against themselves or another.  Over 94% had no health insurance from their employer, 94% had no paid sick days, 56% had sometimes had to work while sick, and 33% had been hurt on the job.

Want to know more? Read the SIF Project Report.