Search Results (3)

This paper describes a process that integrates behavioral and decision science methods to design and evaluate interventions to disrupt illicit behaviors. We developed this process by extending a framework used to study systems with uncertain outcomes, where only partial information is observable, and wherein there are multiple participating parties with competing goals. The extended framework that we propose builds from artefactual data collection, thematic analysis, and descriptive analysis, toward predictive modeling and agent-based modeling. We use agent-based modeling to characterize and predict interactions between system participants for the purpose of improving our understanding of interventional targets in a virtual environment before piloting them in the field. We apply our extended framework to an exploratory case study that examines the potential of worker centers as a venue for deploying interventions to address labor exploitation and human trafficking. This case study focuses on reducing wage theft, the most prevalent form of exploitation experienced by day laborers and applies the first three steps of the extended framework. Specifically, the case study makes a preliminary assessment of two types of social interventions designed to disrupt exploitative processes and improve the experiences of day laborers, namely: (1) advocates training day laborers about their workers’ rights and options that they have for addressing wage theft and (2) media campaigns designed to disseminate similar educational messages about workers’ rights and options to address wage theft through broadcast channels. Applying the extended framework to this case study of day laborers at a worker center demonstrates how digital technology could be used to monitor, evaluate, and support collaborations between worker center staff and day laborers. Ideally, these collaborations could be improved to mitigate the risks and costs of wage theft, build trust between worker center stakeholders, and address communication challenges between day laborers and employers, in the context of temporary work. Based on the application of the extended framework to this case study of worker center day laborers, we discuss how next steps in the research framework should prioritize understanding how and why employers make decisions to participate in wage theft and the potential for restorative justice and equity matching as a relationship model for employers and laborers in a well-being economy. Full article

APUNCAC is a draft international convention designed to address systemic corruption, strengthening UNCAC’s provisions and adding mechanisms to make it more effective. ‘Corruption’ includes public officials abusing their powers. This article addresses an especially insidious form: when laws are created and applied to deny equal protection under the law. Ruling elites control the executive and parliament, to pass laws that selectively target and disadvantage a segment of the population. Our empirical data comes from a historical case, massive government-sanctioned wage theft from Western Australian Aboriginal workers between 1901 and 1972. We use these data to analyse how this kind of corruption works in practice, to evaluate APUNCAC’s measures and strategies, to see what specific measures might be used or modified, and where APUNCAC might need supplementing. We argue that Article 4(3) could have a major impact, especially supported by other Articles and processes, such as dedicated independent courts and strategic engagement with local courts. We evaluate two scenarios: The first scenario is prospective, assuming that APUNCAC is adopted. We evaluate the possible impact of APUNCAC in deterring future corruption involving selective application of the law. The second scenario is retrospective. We evaluate the possible support that APUNCAC might provide regarding court actions that seek redress for potential litigants, such as WA Aboriginal people who were injured in the past. Full article

This critical community-engaged mixed methods study quantifies worker mistreatment on day labor corners in Bryan, Texas, and examines how day laborers resist labor exploitation. Day laborers seek work in open air spot markets. The work is precarious, with temporary and unregulated employment relations, weak enforcement, and poor working conditions. In this weak penalty and labor enforcement regime, labor violations are not surprising. Contrary to dominant theories, however, we argue that demand-side (industry) characteristics are more important for explaining the prevalence of labor violation than supply-side (worker characteristics). We use the Central Texas Day Labor Survey (2012–2021), 210 ethnosurveys consisting of 55% unauthorized workers, 24% authorized workers, and 20% Latinx, Black, and White citizens. We find that higher indices of labor violations and work abuse are not associated with lower-status workers; all workers, irrespective of legal status or citizenship, experienced abuse by employers. Demand-side characteristics were partially associated with higher levels of wage theft and mistreatment. In terms of wages, we found a gradation of wages with the lowest for unauthorized immigrants, then authorized immigrants, Latinx citizens, Black citizens, and lastly White citizens. Finally, workers collectively fight back against injustice by warning each other about unscrupulous employers. Full article