According to Buffalo Business First, Governor David Paterson signed the New York Wage Theft Prevention Act into law on December 13. The passage of this law will make New York employers pay both attention and reasonable wages and taxes on those wages. Up to now, employers caught breaking the law were only required to pay 25% of back wages, causing some to under-pay employees on the chance that they may not be found out since the penalty if caught was so low. Now they must pay all wages owed plus a penalty matching the owed-wage amount.
Interesting that Governor Paterson thought that the problem needed to be addressed in New York but Governor Schwarzenegger in California vetoed a similar bill when it was presented to him a couple of months ago, stating that there were enough current laws in effect to cover this issue without any additional bills.
See our recent blog post for details.
Photo courtesy Wikipedia.
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