St. Petersburg City Council seeks to bolster program to fight wage theft

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Charlie Frago, Times Staff Writer
Thursday, September 15, 2016 1:25pm

ST. PETERSBURG – The city has had a wage-theft program for a year, but it hasn’t worked as well as hoped.

Last month, the program’s coordinator outlined some tweaks that would strengthen enforcement and help drive recalcitrant employers to the negotiating table.

On Sept. 8, City Council members again tried to suss out how to make the fledgling program stronger.

Amy Foster wondered if exempting complainants from Florida’s Sunshine Law might encourage more people to formally file complaints with the city. Right now, less than half of those who call the city’s office actually file a complaint.

Many of those people are afraid of retaliation or ending up in the newspaper or other media, Foster said. Charlie Gerdes countered by pointing out if victims were exempted from public records laws, offending companies would be, too. And any exemption from the Sunshine Law would need state approval.

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Gov. Brown Signs Senator Mendoza Bill to Prevent Wage Theft from California Workers

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By Christopher Simmons
July 26, 2016

SACRAMENTO, Calif. /California Newswire/ – A measure, SB 1342, authored by Calif. Senator Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) that would protect workers by paving the way for a statewide mechanism at the local level to fight wage theft, was signed by Governor Brown today. The bill will go into effect on January 1, 2017.

“I thank Governor Brown for signing SB 1342,” said Senator Tony Mendoza. “This bill protects hard-working Californians by clarifying the ability of cities and counties to investigate non-compliance with local wage laws.”

“As cities and counties in California move to raise the minimum wage, we must ensure that our low-wage workers, who already face many challenges, receive the pay that they have earned,” added Senator Tony Mendoza.

Fifteen cities in California have passed minimum wage ordinances going beyond the State-mandated $10 an hour. In many cases however, employers do not obey these laws. For example, San Francisco City and County have passed ordinances to raise the local minimum wage to $12.25 an hour. Additionally, they have set a precedent by creating an Office of Labor Standards Enforcement to uphold these laws and address the shortfall in local wage enforcement.

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One of the biggest crime waves in America isn’t what you think it is

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Jeff Spross
August 15, 2016

In dollar terms, what group of Americans steals the most from their fellow citizens each year?

The answer might surprise you: It’s employers, many of whom are committing what’s known as wage theft. It’s not just about underpaying workers. They’re not paying workers what they’re legally owed for the labor they put in.

It takes different forms: not paying workers the federal, state, or local minimum wage; not paying them overtime; or just monkeying around with job titles to avoid regulations.

No one knows exactly how big a problem wage theft is, but in 2012 federal and state agencies recovered $933 million for victims of wage theft. By comparison, all the property taken in all the robberies of all types in 2012, solved or unsolved, amounted to a little under $341 million.

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MASSACHUSETTS COMPANIES TO PAY $2.4M IN OVERTIME, DAMAGES TO 478 WORKERS, MOST INTENTIONALLY MISCLASSIFIED AS INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS

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BOSTON – A Lunenburg construction company and a Framingham company it used to avoid its legal responsibilities as an employer have been ordered to pay a total of $2,359,685 in back wages and liquidated damages to 478 employees and take other corrective actions to prevent future violations of federal labor law. Under a consent judgment they will also pay $262,900 in civil money penalties due to the willful nature of their violations.

An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found that Force Corp., AB Construction Group Inc. and employers Juliano Fernandes and Anderson Dos Santos misclassified the bulk of their employees as independent contractors to avoid paying them overtime wages and other benefits to which they were entitled under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In addition, the defendants used a combination of payroll checks and cash/check payments to pay their employees straight time when overtime pay was required, and kept inadequate and inaccurate time and payroll records.

“American workers go to their jobs each and every day and work hard to help their employers turn a profit,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “To be cheated out of wages and denied other workplace protections by an employer who deliberately flouts the rules compounds the struggles too many middle class Americans already face. Workers who play by the rules deserve nothing less than to be paid what they are owed.”

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Massachusetts Senate passes wage theft bill

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By Shira Schoenberg

On July 13, 2016

BOSTON – The Massachusetts Senate on Wednesday passed a controversial bill aimed at cracking down on wage theft.

“This is a matter of general fairness for the employees,” said State Sen. Sal

DiDomenico, D-Everett, the bill’s sponsor.

The bill, S.2416, passed by a 38-2 vote. The two dissenters were State Sen. Kenneth Donnelly, D-Arlington, and State Sen. Ryan Fattman, R-Webster.

The bill would make companies that contract with a subcontractor who withholds wages liable for those wages. The contractor could also be liable for fees and fines, if it knows or should have known about the wage theft.

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Philly’s new wage theft ordinance is now in effect

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You can file complaints through city if employer doesn’t pay out

JULY 07, 2016
BY DANIEL CRAIG

A new city ordinance gives employees working in the city of Philadelphia a tool to reclaim wages stolen by an employer.

The ordinance, signed into law by then-Mayor Michael Nutter in December 2015, went into effect on July 1.

The legislation was introduced by Councilman Bill Greenlee in an effort to curb the illegal practice in Philadelphia, where workers of color and those in the service industry are disproportionally affected, Al Dia News reported last year.

According to data, up to $32 million in wages is withheld from workers statewide every week, and about 93,000 instances of wage theft occur in that same time period in the Philadelphia metro area, according to the news outlet.

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Port Drivers Reach $5 Million Settlement in Misclassification Suit

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July 15, 2016

A class-action lawsuit representing nearly 400 Southern California port truck drivers has resulted in a $5 million settlement agreement with port trucking company group QTS, ending the three-year- long suit.

The lawsuit was brought by the Wage Justice Center and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles on behalf of Latino and Korean-American port truck drivers who claimed that they had been misclassified as contract workers in order to cheat them out of the wages and benefits granted to full employees.

This is the latest in a longstanding dispute between many port truck drivers serving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the port trucking companies who classify drivers as independent contractors. Most recently, Premium Transportation Services filed, blaming its financial troubles on driver misclassification lawsuits and legal costs. QTS was also in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings during the lawsuit.

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Independent Contractor Misclassification: A Rising Tide

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Joeseph E. Vaughan & Thomas R. Bond, The Legal Intelligencer
July 21, 2016

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series.

The U.S. Department of Labor has recognized the misclassification of employees as independent contractors as one of the most serious problems facing affected workers, employers and the entire economy. This agency points out on their website that the employment relationship between workers and the businesses receiving the benefit of their labor has fissured apart as companies have contracted out, or otherwise shared activities to be performed by other businesses. This is accomplished according to this agency through the use of subcontractors, temporary agencies, labor brokers, and franchising, licensing, and third-party management. This sharing may lead to the misclassification of employees as independent contractors in a variety of ways, such as employers simply mislabeling certain employees as independent contractors to reduce payroll course.

The Department for Professional Employees, a part of the AFL-CIO, maintains that employer misclassification of employees as an independent contractor is a widespread phenomenon in the United States. They note that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates that employers have misclassified millions of workers nationally as independent contractors.

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City of Berkeley Enacts First of Its Kind Wage Theft Prevention Ordinance

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By Valerie Gotten – Jul 20, 2016

BERKELEY, Calif. /California Newswire/ – Last night, the City of Berkeley approved a first-of-its-kind local ordinance aimed at preventing wage theft on local construction projects, Smart Cities Prevail announced today.

Authored by Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, co-sponsored by a majority of the Council and supported by construction industry trade associations and workers’ rights groups, the measure requires that developers and builders certify that all contractors performing work on large projects have complied with state wage and hour laws as a condition of winning a certificate of occupancy from the city.

“Enforcing wage laws is especially difficult in the construction industry, because unscrupulous contractors who cheat workers in order to win bids on large projects find ways of disappearing after the work is done,” said Smart Cities Prevail Policy Director Scott Littlehale. “By expanding transparency and accountability BEFORE a project is complete, Berkeley has taken an important step towards preventing wage theft and leveling the playing field for honest construction businesses competing for this work.”

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Philadelphia’s Tough New Anti-Wage Theft Law Effective July 1

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6/28/2016
by Timothy McCarthy, Stephanie Peet

Effective on July 1, 2016, the City of Philadelphia’s Wage Theft Law imposes higher penalties for violations than currently are imposed by the state’s anti-wage theft law, provides for a private right of action for alleged violations, and creates the position of Wage Theft Coordinator within the City’s Managing Director’s Office.

While wage theft (typically refers to the intentional non-payment or underpayment of earned wages) is already subject to penalty under Pennsylvania’s Wage Payment and Collection Law (43 P.S. § 260.1 et seq.), Philadelphia’s new ordinance increases employers’ compliance obligations and potential penalties for violations.

Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter signed into law the City’s first anti-wage theft ordinance (“Wage Theft Law”) on December 1, 2015.

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