Group wants more federal penalties for ‘stolen’ wages

Ernest Hatten CLEVELAND — of Cleveland says he first experienced wage theft years ago while working as a security guard.

After working 56 to 60 hours in a given week, Hatten says his supervisor asked if they could subtract eight hours of pay in exchange for a vacation day, cheating him of the money he was entitled to get. He says people often don’t speak up when it happens because they fear losing work.

“These things shouldn’t be happening to people,” the photographer who works in the transportation industry told reporters at a Wednesday press conference. “It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s something that needs to stop.”

A new report from Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning research institute, found that Ohio employers steal from about 213,000 of their workers each year by paying them less than the state’s minimum wage, which is currently $9.30 per hour. In addition, it’s estimated that victims who stay at those jobs for a whole year lose an average of $2,900, or a quarter of their total pay.

It said around half of Ohio workers paid less than minimum wage are in the leisure and hospitality industry. The report says Hispanic people, those born outside the United States, and women make up a disproportionate number of victims, adding that employers steal from Black and white employees at roughly the same rates. However, Black victims tend to lose more money than white victims because they tend to work longer hours.

Wage theft also occurs when employers fail to pay overtime compensation, require off-the-clock work, fail to provide final paychecks, improperly withhold tips, and misclassify employees as being exempt from overtime or as independent contractors rather than employees.

The report’s author, Michael Shields, said Ohioans protected by unions are less likely to have wages stolen, so the right for workers to organize is critical. He said Ohio has just six investigators to probe wage and hour complaints for the state’s workforce of 5.8 million people and urged the state to devote more resources to the problem.

The organization urged the passage of legislation called the “Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act,” whose backers include U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat.

It aims to prevent wage theft and facilitate the recovery of stolen wages through several measures, including strengthening the penalties for engaging in wage theft; giving workers the right to receive, promptly, total compensation for the work they perform and to get regular paystubs; providing workers with improved tools to recover their stolen wages in court; and making grants available to enhance enforcement of and compliance with federal wage and hour laws.

Brown told reporters that dishonest employers across the country steal an estimated $50 billion a year from their workers by withholding legally owned earnings. He said the bill would “give workers more power to fight back,” increase fines for wage theft violations, improve accountability and expand workers’ rights to their employment records. Employers found guilty of cheating their workers would have to pay them triple the lost wages, plus interest, said Brown.

He predicted the bill “has a good chance” for passage because it is co-sponsored by the Democratic chairs of the House and Senate committees that oversee labor issues. However, it does not have any Republican supporters.

So far, it seems to have Republican opponents.