Authored by Phil Thoden and originally published by AGC Austin.
UPDATE from editor: the ordinance was approved by Austin City Council.
This Thursday, December 1, the Austin City Council will approve a new wage theft ordinance for the local construction industry. The proposal is available to review here.
This proposal has changed significantly since it was first proposed by the Council back in January. Most importantly, this final version:
- Does NOT include joint and several liability among contractors and sub-contractors
- Does NOT include criminal penalties
Essentially, the ordinance:
- Targets wage theft in ONLY construction work, no other industries are covered by the ordinance
- Creates a Wage Theft Coordinator to create and maintain a database that contains information identifying construction employers within the City that have a record of wage theft adjudication
- Complaints may be made to the Wage Theft Coordinator on construction projects both public and private
- Any contractors in the database having a record of wage theft adjudication will not be awarded any City contracts
- Aside from being listed in the database, there are no City penalties for contractors performing private work
On balance, the ordinance appears to be a reasonable one for construction companies working in Austin. The AGC was able to join with other industry groups to represent the company perspective on this issue. We will monitor closley the implementation of this ordinance to ensure that it is administered fairly and without bias toward any contractor(s).
A copy of our letter to City Council on this issue is available here, and an excellent legal analysis of the proposed ordinance is available here thanks to our legal friends at Cokinos|Young.
