Oregon Law to Affect Pay Stubs, Time and Pay Records, and Wage Theft

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

6/16/2016
by Kelly Riggs

The State of Oregon has enacted a new law, SB 1587, designed to increase transparency with respect to employee pay, prevent wage theft, and expose wage and hour violations. Generally, the law will require employers to provide additional details on itemized pay stubs and allow employees to inspect and request copies of their time and pay records. The law also provides increased enforcement measures and prohibits wage theft by public works contractors and subcontractors. Employers must comply with the new requirements, summarized below, beginning January 1, 2017.

Itemized Pay Stubs

Under the new amendments to the current pay stub statute, ORS 652.610, employers will be required to provide much greater detail on itemized, written pay stubs, including:

  • the date of the payment;
  • the dates of work covered by the payment;
  • the employee’s name;
  • the name and business registry number or business identification number of the employer;
  • the address and telephone number of the employer;
  • the rate or rates of pay;
  • whether the employee is paid by the hour, shift, day, or week or on a salary, piece, or commission basis;
  • gross wages;
  • net wages;
  • the amount and purpose of each deduction made during the period of service that the payment covers;
  • allowances, if any, claimed as part of minimum wage;
  • unless paid on a salary basis and legally exempt from overtime pay, the regular hourly rate or rates of pay, the overtime rate or rates of pay, the number of regular hours worked and pay for those hours, and the number of overtime hours worked and pay for those hours; and
  • if paid on a piece rate, the applicable piece rate or rates of pay, the number of pieces completed at each rate, and the total pay for each rate.

Employers may provide itemized pay stubs to employees in electronic form, but only if (1) the employee expressly agrees to receive them in electronic form; and (2) the employee has the ability to print or store the statement at the time of receipt.

Oregon law already provides that itemized pay stub violations constitute a Class D criminal violation, potentially punishable by a fine of up to $250 for individuals or $500 for corporations. Beginning on January 1, 2017, violations of these new pay stub provisions will also constitute a Class D criminal violation.

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Labor Department investigating subcontractor on Trump’s Old Post Office project

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
Drew Hanson, Digital Editor
Updated Jun 27, 2016, 10:18am EDT

The Labor Department is investigating whether a subcontractor working on Donald Trump’s Old Post Office hotel underpaid employees working on the downtown D.C. project, according to The Washington Post.

A Labor spokesperson told the Post the agency is looking into whether Brentwood-based glass specialist The Craftsmen Group was paying wages below those required by federal law on government construction projects.

The investigation was first reported last week by Politico. Workers on the Pennsylvania Avenue construction site, including one Craftsmen employee, told Politico that they and others were not receiving wages mandated by the Davis-Bacon Act.

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US LABOR DEPARTMENT RECOVERS $189K IN WAGES ON BEHALF OF 28 UNDERPAID WORKERS ON FEDERALLY FUNDED MANHATTAN CONSTRUCTION PROJECT

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

SJ Insulation debarred from future government contracts following joint enforcement effort with New York Attorney General

WHD News Release: 05/25/2016
Release Number: 16-0804-NEW

NEW YORK – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $189,000 in unpaid wages and overtime for 28 carpenters and laborers who worked on the federally funded West 131st St. Cluster Project in Harlem between April 2009 and April 2010. This was the result of a joint enforcement effort with the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in which the two agencies shared information and worked collaboratively on behalf of workers in New York. The attorney general’s investigation continues.

“Contractors on federally funded construction projects commit to paying their workers the required wages and fringe benefits when they bid these contracts. When, as in this case, they cheat their workers, they are also cheating the taxpayers who ultimately fund these jobs,” said Wage and Hour Division Regional Administrator Mark Watson, Jr. “As the resolution of this case demonstrates, we will not tolerate such illegal behavior.”

“We thank Attorney General Schneiderman and his staff for working jointly with us during the prosecution of this case. We have the mutual goals of ensuring that employees in our jurisdictions are paid and treated properly and employers who underpay their workers do not secure an unfair advantage over law-abiding employers,” said Jeffrey S. Rogoff, the department’s regional solicitor in New York.

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Working to Stop Wage Theft

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

6-6-16
By Michael Hill, Correspondent

Felix Lema said a construction job boss stole his wages.

Make the Road New Jersey recently helped him recover some of his pay.

“I had been owed wages for a long time by my employer. I asked him everyday please pay me, please pay me. One day he said you need to go home now you need to stop asking me and he gave me a ride home. Instead of taking me home he drove me to the Elizabeth Immigration Detention Center where the threat was deportation,” said Sara Cullinane, state director of Make the Road New Jersey who was translating Lemas’ words.

…

The Senate Labor Committee just approved Senate bill 1396. It would allow wage theft victims to have their claims not only heard by the state Labor Department but in municipal and superior courts, allow disorderly persons’ charges against violators and increase the statute of limitations to recover unpaid wages from two to six years.

New Jersey Working Families – the same organization behind raising the minimum wage – is leading the charge on wage theft protection.

“We have to make sure that every worker actually receives compensation,” said New Jersey Working Families Executive Director Analilia Mejia.

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Coalition forms to combat wage theft

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Barb Kucera, Workday Minnesota
June 5, 2016

MINNEAPOLIS – Several Minnesota labor and community organizations are forming a coalition to combat the growing problem of wage theft that costs workers millions of dollars every year.

The coalition will hold its first meeting Tuesday, June 7, from 3 to 4 p.m. at the offices of CTUL, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha/Center of Workers United in Struggle, 2511 E. Franklin St., Minneapolis. Interested organizations are encouraged to send a representative.

Groups in the coalition include CTUL , a Minneapolis-based worker center; North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters; Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation; SEIU Healthcare Minnesota; SEIU State Council and the University of Minnesota Labor Education Service, which publishes Workday Minnesota.

Formation of the coalition was prompted by Workday’s recent series exposing the many forms of wage theft and discussing possible solutions.

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Registration now open – 18th Annual NAFC Conference – San Diego, CA – Oct. 17 – 19, 2016

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

May 26, 2016

NAFC will be holding its Annual Conference in San Diego, CA this year. The Conference will be held at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa on Mission Bay, just outside downtown San Diego. This year’s Conference will be jointly sponsored by the Center for Contract Compliance and will have both a national and California state specific focus. The NAFC National Conference is attended by several hundred participants from across the nation, including representatives from labor organizations, fair contractors, fair contracting compliance organizations as well as researchers, academics, attorneys and officials from federal, state and local governments.

Register today, spaces are limited.

(Visit NAFC’s Conference Page)

(Download your registration form here)

City Hall Tells How It Proposes to Enforce Pasadena’s New Minimum Wage (CA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

City Hall’s monitoring, enforcement plan calls for hiring a compliance officer, new duties for multiple city departments and a $204,000 budget

by EDDIE RIVERA, Community Editor
Wednesday, May 4, 2016 | 4:56 AM

Following Pasadena’s passage in March of a new ordinance which will raise the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour by 2020, both business owners and people who work in Pasadena were left with two major questions – how will this raise actually be implemented and monitored, and how will the new law be enforced?

City Hall’s Minimum Wage Internal Working Group has a plan. The detailed proposal was made public last Thursday in an informational report.

The Group is recommending that the overall program be administered by a code compliance manager working within the department of Planning and Community Development. The initial outreach of the ordinance to media, residents and businesses, will be managed by the Council’s Economic Development Committee, and the City’s public information officer. Staff training in the legal requirements of the ordinance will be handled by the City Attorney’s office.

Consumer outreach and education will be managed by the consumer action teams of the Recreation and Human Services Department, who will also manage intake and complaints regarding wage enforcement and refer them to the Code Compliance manager. Egregious cases may also be referred to the Prosecutor’s Office, working with the Police Department.

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New York State recovers $10.2M in stolen wages, on pace for record year in recouping money owed to workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

BY GLENN BLAIN
Thursday, May 5, 2016, 5:48 PM

ALBANY – State officials are on a record pace for recovering stolen wages, recouping $10.2 million for ripped off workers during the first three months of 2016, the Daily News has learned.

The Labor Department and other agencies returned the money to more than 17,000 workers who were not properly compensated by their employers, including 11,318 in the city, according to state figures.

“New York State has zero tolerance for employers who seek to cheat their employees of hard-earned wages,” Gov. Cuomo said.

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A.G. Schneiderman Announces Conviction Of Contractor Who Will Pay Nearly $800,000 To Workers For Wage Theft

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

MAY 20, 2016
BY CHRISTOPHER BOYLE

(Long Island, NY) Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced that New Paltz-based construction company Lalo Drywall, Inc. and its owner Sergio Raymundo, 28, were sentenced in Manhattan Supreme Court after a conviction related to wage theft for underpaying workers at a mixed-use, commercial, and low-income residential project in Harlem.

Raymundo and Lalo Drywall, Inc. admitted to cheating eight workers at a Harlem housing project out of approximately $800,000 in wages during a 17-month period. The defendants attempted to conceal the underpayments by signing false checks drawn on the company’s account indicating that employees on the job were paid properly under the law. However, those checks were never actually given to the workers.

“Wage theft is a crime – one that frequently involves companies exploiting low and middle income workers for their own gain,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “My office will continue to aggressively prosecute those who commit wage theft and ensure that workers received the compensation they have earned.”

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On the wage theft beat

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Shortchanged: An in-depth look at wage theft

By DYLAN THOMAS
APRIL 19, 2016

If labor activists have turned up the volume on the discussion around wage theft, that’s a good thing, said John Aiken, director of the Apprenticeship and Labor Standards Division of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, the state agency that investigates worker complaints.

“What that is doing is raising the profile of this issue and, hopefully as one of the consequences of this, is driving people to this office to seek the assistance that they deserve,” Aiken said.

The department receives more than 20,000 inquiries each year. While some of the phone calls and emails concern child labor laws, the majority of complaints fall into the category of illegal activity commonly known as “wage theft,” including workers who never received a final paycheck from a previous employer, weren’t paid overtime or had illegal deductions taken out of their wages.

The increased attention being paid to wage theft has thrown a spotlight on the laws that are meant to protect workers, employers who seem to flout the rules and the resources that are available to go after lawbreakers. Both state agencies and their federal counterparts at the U.S. Department of Labor are noticing.
“As a person who does law enforcement, I would always like a bigger staff,” David King, district director for the federal Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division office in Minneapolis, said. “We could always find work for people to do. There’s lots of things that can be done to help protect workers. That’s just a reality.

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