Wage Law Enforcement

Earlier this month, the Maryland legislature joined a number of states in cracking down on worker misclassification by enacting the Maryland Workplace Fraud Act (S 909 / H 819 ) which has the support of Gov. O'Malley who is expected to sign the bill shortly.  The main focus of the bill was stopping the misclassification of workers as "independent contractors" used by employers to deny them a minimum wage, overtime and key workplace benefits.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recently signed a wage enforcement bill (H 489) to allow underpaid workers to collect their back wages plus twice that amount in damages. The bill was backed by community groups and labor unions as well as the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions.  New Mexico now becomes the eighth state that allows workers to collect treble damages against employers violating the minimum wage – a key deterrent to employers to ensure compliance with the minimum wage. 

The federal government is fixated on raiding workplaces in search of immigrant workers, but they have practically abandoned punishing irresponsible employers violating wage, workplace safety and child labor laws.  Demonstrating a remarkable commitment to punishing the victims, they've left it up to states to take action against the more pervasive problem of sweatshop labor conditions.

Instead of allowing the right-wing to scapegoat undocumented immigrant workers, Progressive States Network will be working with progressive leaders across the country to introduce wage enforcement laws that emphasize that native and immigrant workers both suffer under illegal working conditions. See State Immigration Project: Policy Options for 2009 for the full range of immigration policies Progressive States Network is supporting in upcoming legislative sessions.

Today, the Progressive States Network is releasing a new report: The Anti-Immigrant Movement that Failed: Positive Integration Policies by States Still Far Outweigh Punitive Policies Aimed at New Immigrants.   The Executive Summary is available online, as well as the full report in PDF and HTML format.

The Iowa Senate on Tuesday approved SF 2416, a bill to sharply increase fines on employers violating Iowa state wage laws, crack down on the practice of misclassifying employees as "independent contractors" to evade those laws, and protect workers reporting violations from retaliation.  

In a dramatic sweep of 117 employers, a new New York State joint task force of state labor, tax and worker compensation agencies found that 2,078 employees had been illegally misclassified as independent contractors, with $19 million in wages not reported to the state.  An additional 646 workers were owed minimum wage and overtime pay totaling $3 million.

In honor of Labor Day, we thought we would highlight some of our past Dispatches which outline steps states can take to protect workers' rights and raise wage standards. With new Census data showing that the median income for working-age households is still $1,300 below 2001 when the last recession hit bottom, the need for states to act to improve working conditions is greater than ever.

The good news is that over thirty states and the federal government raised the minimum wage in recent years.  The bad news is that many employers, even most employers in some industries, ignore existing wage and workplace regulations, so the real challenge now is to stop the systematic violation of these laws.

In the last few weeks, the debate on immigration has heated up.