New York Initiative Targets Wage Theft

The New York Department of Labor is mad as hell and ain't gonna take it anymore.

Take what? Wage theft in its many forms. The department this week launched a new program to monitor employers throughout the Empire State.

Modeled somewhat on the nation's Neighborhood Watch program, New York Wage Watch will empower groups of volunteers throughout the state to report violations of wage laws, generally pertaining to minimum wage and overtime provisions in the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) and other pieces of legislation.

The state has been beset with numerous instances of wage theft in various industries. Restaurant violations (even involving allegations against celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Tom Colicchio) seem to get the most headlines, but a study found that 78 percent of the state's car washes were not paying minimum wage or overtime.

Even state icons like the Saratoga Race Course and the Erie County Fair didn't go unscathed--or undetected. At Saratoga, more than 100 backstretch workers reported wage violations, and at the fair, bathroom attendants were paid nothing and forced to give half their tips to a subcontractor.

Activities by New York Wage Watch volunteers will include holding training sessions, providing employers with compliance literature, and handing out employee literature in public places. When violations are suspected within any volunteer group's geographic zone, a mechanism to report these alleged abuses is in place. Everything will be supervised and monitored by the State Labor Department's Division of Labor Standards.

For those of you running your own businesses or making wage decisions, I highly recommend a series of wage and overtime tools from Personnel Concepts.