For months, the good folks at the Chicago-based Interfaith Worker Justice and elected officials like Rep. Phil Hare have been leading the fight to protect low-wage workers from wage theft. Unfortunately, it's not the only type of abuse many low-income Americans face on the job. Based on a survey of 4,387 workers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, a new study (PDF) released yesterday by 11 labor scholars and social scientists found that prevailing labor protections "are failing significant numbers of workers."

How many? Sixty-eight percent of the workers interviewed said they experienced at least one pay violation in the previous work week, ranging from unpaid overtime, to pay rates below the minimum wage, to being pressured not to file workers’ compensation claims. Out of a typical weekly salary of $339, surveyed laborers were cheated out of $51, equal to a substantial 15 percent pay deduction.

The authors recommend strengthening government enforcement of employment and labor laws -- something Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is attempting to do by bolstering the staggeringly gutted Wage and Hour Division -- and establishing equal status for immigrant workers. Most importantly, they urge lawmakers to "update legal standards for the 21st century workplace."

No force can better protect against exploitation than unions. The nation's labor laws should more easily allow workers the opportunity to organize if they so choose. Evidence suggests they would.