Illinois legislature passes groundbreaking anti-wage theft bill, measure will help economy, taxpayers, workers and businesses

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NEWS PROVIDED BY HourVoice
07 Jun, 2017, 14:36 ET

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Illinois legislature has passed groundbreaking legislation (SB1720) to address wage theft in Illinois. Wage theft is estimated to cost American workers over $50 billion per year and news reports have shown Illinois is a very difficult and complex state for workers seeking to recoup stolen wages. The legislation prohibits businesses who violate state law on the payment of wages from receiving taxpayer-funded state contracts for at least five years. SB1720 also increases the penalty for disobeying a court order to pay back wages the court finds to have been stolen from an employee.

“In this time of fiscal crisis, we need to make sure that taxpayer-funded state contracts are only going to companies which treat their employees fairly. The vast majority of Illinois businesses, which play by the rules and do right by their employees, deserve a level playing field. Taxpayers deserve more confidence on how their money is spent. I was proud to support this common-sense measure,” said State Rep. Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) who voted for SB1720.

According to HourVoice, wage theft takes many forms, including: shorting workers on their hours, not paying the minimum wage, and not properly paying overtime. It impacts employees in every region of Illinois – at all wage levels and in a wide array of industries.

“Wage theft is estimated to drain $800 million – $3 billion a year from the Illinois economy,” said State Representative Lisa Hernandez (D-Cicero) who sponsored the measure. “It can also push people below the poverty line and make it harder for working parents to support their children. But when low-income workers get the full pay they have earned, they improve the local and state economy with the dollars they spend.”

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Carpenters Union takes on wage theft at downtown development

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By Bill Shaner
July 13, 2017

The Carpenters Local 107 was out in force earlier this week in front of the 145 Front Street development, rallying around accusations that a subcontractor from New Jersey has systematically stiffed local carpenters on overtime hours and pay.

Dozens of union members and advocates marched in a circle across the street, banging on buckets, blowing whistles and chanting slogans like “no justice, no peace.”

At the heart of the matter are five formal U.S. Department of Labor complaints filed by local contractors against the New Jersey-based P and B Partitions.

One such complainant, Edward Vazquez, said time-and-a-half overtime pay and some overtime hours were withheld from his paychecks for about eight months. When he spoke up and attempted to organize other laborers, he was let go, he said.

“Basically, I was getting paid a check, and the rest was in cash, but I wasn’t getting that cash,” he said. “Someone was pocketing that money.”

The five workers who filed the complaint were paid for 40 hours on the books, then overtime in cash, but two hours of overtime were left out and they were straight paid, instead of the legally required time and a half, according to the union.

Vazquez, a Marlborough resident and Worcester native, said unfair treatment was extended to local carpenters and workers formally employed by the company.

“I was let go when I was talking to workers about standing up for their pay.”

He said the case against the company is a home run, and consequently got him into unionizing. After filing the complaint, he joined the Carpenters Local 107.

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Wage Theft Is Costing Workers $50 Billion a Year in Stolen Pay

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THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017, 3:33 PM
BY ELI HOROWITZ

 

Five local carpenters who were working on a mixed-use building that includes high-end apartments in downtown Worcester are claiming that they were victims of wage theft and payroll fraud.

The carpenters, who were employed by P&B Partitions, a contractor based in West Berlin, New Jersey, say they were victims of wage and hour violations. Three of the carpenters have filed wage complaints with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, according to a statement from the New England Regional Council of Carpenters.

According to the wage complaints, P&B did not pay the carpenters for all hours worked and frequently paid the workers for overtime hours in cash and at less than the rate required by state law.

Dave Minasian, a spokesman for the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, said the amount of money the workers claim they were bilked of is not being released at this time.

P&B said they did not have anyone immediately available to comment on the complaint. Minasian said P&B has not responded to his organization.

The Worcester Carpenters Union is assisting the workers in recovering the allegedly lost wages.

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Santa Fe judge allows wage-theft enforcement suit to continue

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By T.S. Last/Journal NorthFriday, April 28th, 2017 at 4:56pm

SANTA FE – District Court Judge David K. Thomson on Friday rejected a motion by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions to dismiss a lawsuit filed claiming the department was not enforcing state wage theft laws.

The lawsuit was filed in January by four people who say they were victims of wage theft and a coalition of workers’ rights groups. They allege that the department doesn’t hold guilty employers liable for statutory damages during the administrative enforcement phase of a case; improperly imposes a $10,000 cap on investigating wage theft claims; doesn’t investigate or take action against a business when a claim is more than a year old; and refuses claims when workers get snagged by administrative red tape.

“This ruling reaffirms that every hard working New Mexican – not just those with the money to hire lawyers – deserves to be paid for their work,” Elizabeth Wagoner of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a news release. “Our state government cannot turn a blind eye when employers break laws protecting working people.”

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Pols working on wage-theft bill (MA)

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By Katie Lannan, State House News Service
UPDATED: 04/26/2017 09:25:02 AM EDT

BOSTON — Workers’ rights advocates and labor leaders pledged Monday to pass into law this session a bill aimed at preventing wage theft by employers.

During a press conference in support of the bill, its backers said wage theft — a business’s underpayment, non-payment or denial of benefits to a worker — particularly hurts immigrants and can pose a barrier to families trying to move up into the middle class.

“I’m not labeling the entire employer community criminals, because the large majority of them are law-abiding and play by the rules and they deserve protection, but those employers that steal the wages from their workers are criminals,” Massachusetts Building Trades Council President Frank Callahan said. “It’s theft and stealing. They don’t carry guns, they don’t wear masks. They wear suits like this and they steal money from people who wear workboots and go to work every single day.”

The bill (S 999/H 1033) seeks to prevent wage law violations by allowing the issuance of stop-work orders until wage violations are corrected and giving the attorney general’s office the power to bring wage theft cases to court for civil damages.

Attorney General Maura Healey described a growing problem in Massachusetts, saying she has hired new investigators and expanded multilingual outreach efforts to combat wage theft. She said her office last year fielded over 20,000 calls from people reporting stolen wages and received 6,000 complaints.

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Wage theft is stealing, hurting vulnerable workers (MN)

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EDITORIALS
APR 27, 2017

Lt. Gov. Tina Smith has been shedding some light recently on wage theft in Minnesota. She has been urging the Legislature to pass legislation cracking down on wage theft this session. She took part in a Capitol rally in February and on Wednesday she joined legislators and Minnesota workers in a roundtable discussion.

According to Smith, wage theft occurs when employers do not pay workers what is owed to them for work performed. According to Smith, more than 39,000 Minnesota workers lose out on nearly $12 million in unpaid wages each year.

“Wage theft is stealing. It’s not how we do business in Minnesota,” Smith said Tuesday.

She says Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposal would strengthen workers’ rights and crack down on non-abiding employers.

It proposes the following:

* Providing funding to enforce wage theft protections
* Defining the law by making it clear wage theft is wrong and illegal
* Give investigators the power to subpoena documents
* Require notice of information to be provided to employees at the start of employment, including rate of pay, the legal name of the employer and the employer’s address and phone number
* Creating stiffer penalties to prevent and crack down on wage theft
* Increasing the fines for willful and repeated violations of wage theft laws from $1,000 to $10,000 per violation
* Requiring employers pay employees every 16 days rather than every 31. Under current law, an employee could work 41 days without knowing whether they are going to be paid or not.

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Wage Violations Are Now “Public Record” Under Colorado’s New Wage Theft Transparency Act

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The National Law Review
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

On April 13, 2017, Governor Hickenlooper signed the Wage Theft Transparency Act into law, which is effective immediately. The Act makes “wage theft” violations in Colorado, including nonpayment of wages or overtime compensation, public record and subject to records requests under the Colorado Open Records Act.

The Act clarifies that information obtained by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), relating to a finding by the CDLE that an employer violated Colorado’s wage laws, is not confidential and shall be released to the public or made available for use in a court proceeding, unless the director of the division makes a determination that the information includes specific information that is a trade secret.

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Trump Repeals Regulation Protecting Workers From Wage Theft

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The regulation was meant to ensure that shady employers don’t benefit from taxpayer dollars.

 

By Dave Jamieson
POLITICS | 03/27/2017

WASHINGTON – Companies that commit wage theft and put their workers in harm’s way just received a favor from the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump signed a bill Monday repealing a regulation that had encouraged federal contractors to follow labor laws. Under the Obama-era rule, companies with an egregious record of violating wage and safety laws would lose their government contracts if they didn’t come into compliance.

The idea behind the rule was to make sure unscrupulous employers didn’t receive taxpayer dollars. But Republicans in Congress thought the rule was too punitive and unfair to businesses. They used an arcane tool known as the Congressional Review Act in an effort to kill the regulation, which was called the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule.

By approving the legislation sent to him by the Senate, Trump has ensured not only that the regulation will die, but also that no similar regulation can be put forth by the Labor Department again. Trump signed the legislation at a White House ceremony in front of the press.

“When President Trump has a chance to stand with workers, he chooses not to,” Heidi Shierholz, a labor policy expert at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement. “By blocking this rule, the president and congressional Republicans will ensure that taxpayers will continue to support contractors with a history of wage theft and health and safety violations.”

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Workers urge Legislature to stop wage theft

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By Barb Kucera, Workday Minnesota
March 2, 2017

ST. PAUL – Workers who have lost thousands of dollars to wage theft descended on the state Capitol Thursday to urge lawmakers to beef up enforcement against employers who break the law.

With only about a week left for the Legislature to hear policy bills, anti-wage theft legislation has yet to have a hearing. The measure would give the state Department of Labor and Industry more enforcement tools and an increased budget to hire four additional wage and hour investigators to do proactive outreach across the state. It would empower workers with more information and impose stiffer penalties for violators.

…

An investigation by Workday Minnesota has found wage theft in Minnesota is larger and more widespread than most people realize – and the problem is growing. The Department of Labor and Industry estimates that 39,000 Minnesota workers suffer from wage theft each year, resulting in $11.9 million in wages owed, and that’s only what goes reported. Wage theft occurs when:

  • Employers refuse to pay their employees for work performed
  • Employers violate minimum wage, prevailing wage, and overtime protections
  • Employers make unlawful paycheck deductions
  • Employers coerce employees to work off the clock
  • Employers misclassify employees as an independent contractors to avoid paying workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance

 

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OP-ED: Wage theft is preventable

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February 28, 2017, 05:00 AM
By Rick Bonilla

Many flaws ultimately doomed President Trump’s labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder, but among the most serious were allegations that his own companies had failed to comply with the very same wage laws that the Labor Department is responsible for enforcing. In Puzder’s case, the issue was that his fast food companies had failed to pay workers for all the hours they had worked, including overtime.

This is called wage theft and it’s much more common and widespread than you probably think.

It also impacts far more than just workers. When businesses steal workers’ wages, they gain a competitive advantage over honest businesses that play by the rules. And, when wages are stolen, so are required payroll and income taxes that are used to fund all types of public services – services on which every taxpayer relies.

In California, wage theft costs taxpayers about $8.5 billion every year, according to the Franchise Tax Board. About 10 percent of that comes from the construction industry, where I’ve worked for much of my career.

While there are state and federal agencies tasked with enforcing labor laws – the reality is that just a fraction of the employers who cheat their workers are ever brought to justice. Many workers who are victimized never file claims. Amongst those who do and receive judgments, only about 20 percent are ever paid. Such dismal enforcement statistics really only encourage more lawbreaking.

In a construction context, it works like this. A builder or general contractor hires subcontractors to do much of the work on a project. If one of the subcontractors cheats his workers, the lead contractor or builder can legally deny having any responsibility. President Trump has done this on his own projects.

Subcontractors can then disappear, shut down, shift assets to a relative, or reform under a different name to avoid payment. And then the cycle repeats.

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