Photo by Danielle Scruggs

Photo by Danielle Scruggs

Councilmember Vincent Orange introduced a bill today that would strengthen penalties and increase fines for wage theft.

Borrowing from the Wikipedia page, Orange defined wage theft as “the illegal withholding of wages or the denial of benefits that are rightfully owed to an employee,” which commonly affects workers from the construction, restaurant, security and domestic work industries. “For low wage earners, wage theft can result in severe consequences like missed payments and even foreclosures and repossessions,” Orange said.

The Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2014, co-introduced by Councilmembers Mary Cheh and Jim Graham, would amend the Wage Payment and Collections Act and the Minimum Wage Revision Act by “increasing applicable remedies, fines, and administrative penalties when an employer fails to pay earned wages as well as providing for suspension of business licenses of employers that are delinquent in paying wage judgments or agreements.”

Under the existing law, penalties for wage theft are small and rarely assessed, resulting in little deterrence for employers from breaking the law. Orange’s bill raises the maximum administrative penalties for non-payment of wages to $50 per day for the first violation and $100 per day for subsequent violations and between $100 and $500 for failing to provide workers with notice of their rights or similar violations.

The Act also establishes formal procedures to enable victims of wage theft to recover
unpaid wages and damages, and requires the employer to provide written notice to each employee of the terms of their employment and to maintain appropriate employment records. Under the current law, employers do not have to inform workers in writing of how much or when they will be paid. The lack of a written record makes it difficult to adjudicate any subsequent wage dispute.

In 2013, the Council included the Wage Theft Prevention Act as part of its budget, which, in part, increased “the maximum liquidated damages a worker can collect from equal to the wages they’re owed to triple that amount.”

Filed Under: vincent orange, wage theft,