By Frank Callahan/Guest Columnist
Posted Feb 23, 2020 at 6:18 PM
The Great Brink’s Robbery, which has been upheld as the most notorious theft in the history of Boston, happened 70 years ago last month.
The brazen daytime heist, in which 11 robbers broke in and stole $2.8 million (about $30 million in 2020 money) from the Brink’s security company in the North End on Jan. 17, 1950, was at the time the largest robbery in U.S. history and dubbed “the crime of the century.” The crime prompted changes to the way companies approached security for both employees and assets. Police, politicians and the public were all focused on making sure lessons were learned and improvements were implemented.
Unfortunately, decision makers today haven’t been acting with the same degree of urgency to an equally onerous theft in our backyard. Wage theft – the practice of stealing money earned by workers – is a $700 million annual problem in Massachusetts. That’s almost $2 million a day being stolen out of the pockets of hardworking men and women, all Massachusetts taxpayers.
It is hurting the workers, who struggle from paycheck to paycheck. It hurts communities, which see its core small businesses suffer because residents have less spending power. And it hurts the entire commonwealth, whose economy suffers, leaving less revenue for crucial services like public safety, education and transportation.
Wage theft may not be as shocking as the Brink’s job, in which gang members picked locks, bound and gagged workers and dispersed into the night. Rather, today’s crooks are more likely to be wearing suits and looking their victims right in the eye while reaching around and picking the wallet from their back pocket. They’re unscrupulous contractors and subcontractors who promise to pay carpenters, pipefitters, sheet metal workers, custodians and countless other laborers agreed-upon wages and then short-change them after the work has already been done.
Frequently, there is little recourse. Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, has committed to cracking down on wage theft in the commonwealth. It’s not fair to ask Healey and her staff to take on this fight with one hand tied behind their backs.
Thankfully, there is a potential fix. There are two wage theft bills pending before the Legislature on Beacon Hill that would take this scourge head on.
Massachusetts’ Building Trades unions are urging lawmakers to pass legislation to provide Healey with greater enforcement authority. That includes enabling her office to penalize lead contractors for wage theft violations committed by their subcontractors. It would also empower the Attorney General’s office to shut down work sites until the violations are corrected.
And this legislation would pay for itself. More enforcement will lead to more recovery. In Fiscal Year 2019, the AG’s office recovered $5.8 million in restitution for these hardworking men and women – less than 1 percent of what was stolen. It stands to reason that more enforcement will return more money.
There are some champions in the Legislature who have recognized the importance of combating wage theft. Sen. Sal DiDomenico of Everett and Rep. Dan Donohue of Worcester have sponsored bills to battle wage theft and lent their support to ensuring the hardworking people of Massachusetts get paid the money they earn. Both of these bills have more than half of the Legislature signed on as co-sponsors.
Seven decades after the Brink’s robbery, people still recall not only the crime but the response to it to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s what we should be doing on the wage theft front, as well.
Frank Callahan is the president of the Massachusetts. Building Trades Council.