Bill to protect construction workers from wage theft passes Senate

A bill from State Sen. Jessica Ramos attempts to hold contractors accountable for wage theft. Photo by Ermell/Wikimedia Commons

By Jacob Kaye

A new bill aimed at protecting construction workers from wage theft passed in the State Senate last week. 

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jessica Ramos, takes aim at contractors and ensures they would assume liability if any of their subcontractors steal wages from their workers. 

The issue of wage theft is widespread, according to Kevin Barry, the director of the Construction Division for the United Service Workers Union, IUJAT. 

“They're exploiting a lot of immigrant labor,” said Barry, who’s in support of the bill. “It's going to be able to hold these general contractors and their subcontractors responsible.”

The bill updates existing wage theft laws in New York State by putting the responsibility on the general contractors of construction projects who may hire a subcontractor who’s offering the work at a low rate, often at the expense of the workers.

“What happens now is general contractors go out and they get these lowball numbers,” Barry said. “And legitimate contractors look at these numbers and are like, ‘I can't even compete with this. How are they doing it?’ Well, what they're doing is they're cheating the workers.”

As it currently stands, victims of wage theft can bring a private lawsuit against their direct employer to collect unpaid wages. However, in the construction industry, employers can work their way around a lawsuit by hiding assets and changing their corporate identity, according to Barry. 

“There's no way to go after them,” the union leader said. “Because what these contractors do is they go out of business. And two days later, they're in business under another name.”

The bill, which had broad support from legislators in Albany, including the 30 who co-sponsored the legislation, is awaiting a signature from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.