BILL NUMBER: S2832A

SPONSOR: BRESLIN
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the penal law, in relation to wage theft

 
PURPOSE GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

The purpose of this bill is to allow prosecutors to seek stronger penal-
ties against employers who steal wages from workers.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Amend the Penal Law to include wages in the definition of "property."
Subsection one of section 155.00 of the Penal Law is amended to read as
follows:

Penal Law § 155.00 Larceny; definitions of terms.

"Property" means any money, wages, personal property, real property,
computer data, computer program, thing in action, evidence of debt or
              

contract, or any article, substance or thing of value, including any
gas, steam, water or electricity, which is provided for a charge or
compensation.

Add a new subsection to the Penal Law's larceny statute to define the
term "workforce."

Section 155.00 of the Penal Law is amended by adding subsection 10 to
read as follows:

Penal Law § 155.00 Larceny; definitions of terms. 10. "Workforce" means
a group of one or more people providing services in exchange for wages
for one person or entity. Expand the definition of larceny to allow
aggregation of victims into a workforce in larceny cases where the prop-
erty stolen is wages.

Subsection two of section 155.05 of the Penal Law is amended by adding
subdivision f to read as follows:

Penal Law § 155.05 Larceny; defined.

2. Larceny includes a wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of
another's property, with the intent prescribed in subdivision one of
this section, committed in any of the following ways: (f) By wage theft.
A person obtains property by wage theft when he agrees to hire a person
to perform services and the person perform s such services and the
defendant withholds such wages from said person. In a prosecution for
wage theft, for the purposes of venue, it is permissible to aggregate
all takings from one person from one defendant, into one larceny count,
even if the takings occurred in multiple counties. It is also permissi-
ble to aggregate takings from a workforce into one larceny count.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Wage theft is a form of worker exploitation, akin to labor trafficking
and other violations of employees' rights. Its perpetrators take advan-
tage of some of our communities' most vulnerable populations, including
undocumented immigrants and low-income workers, who often are not
empowered to stand up for themselves.

According to Cornell University's Worker Institute, wage theft in New
York accounts for nearly $1 billion in lost wages each year and affects
tens of thousands of workers - that's close to $20 million per week.
Conventional wisdom suggests that wage theft solely affects low income
workers who are cheated through subminimum wage or unpaid overtime
schemes. However, the reality is that the problem is much larger in
scope and much more pervasive, especially within the construction indus-
try in New York.

By committing wage theft and associated frauds, these companies unfairly
lower their costs, making it nearly impossible for law-abiding busi-
nesses to compete. And every taxpayer shoulders the effects of wage
theft because when the workers are underinsured, it forces government to
step in and incur costs that should have been borne by their employer.

The "Wage Theft Initiative," a collaboration between seven local
District Attorney's Offices (which includes all five New York City DA's,
plus Westchester and Nassau Counties), the Department of Investigation,
the New York City Comptroller's Office, the New York State Department of
Labor, and the New York State Attorney General's Office, has resulted in
ten criminal cases and accounted for more than $2.5 million in stolen
wages affecting over 400 construction workers, since just December 2017.

But much more must be done to protect hardworking New Yorkers from
unscrupulous employers. When a defendant steals wages from various
employees on an ongoing basis, his intent is not to steal individually
from one worker, but to steal from his workforce. In People v. Cox, 286
N.Y. 137, (1941), the court held that "the People may prosecute for a
single crime a defendant who, pursuant to a single intent and one gener-
al fraudulent plan, steals.in the aggregate as a felon and not as a
petty thief."

Therefore, the Penal Law's section on larceny should be amended to allow
aggregation of victims into a workforce in larceny cases where the prop-
erty stolen is wages. This would allow prosecutors to seek stronger
penalties against employers who steal wages from workers.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

This is a new bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This bill shall take effect immediately.