The North Atlantic States Carpenters, Local 330, held their third, almost-annual Tax Day of Action on the south side of the Rhode Island State House on Thursday afternoon to highlight two pieces of legislation being considered in the General Assembly.
H7677/S2775 will make wage theft a felony.
“To me, it is a matter of fundamental fairness,” said Attorney General Peter Neronha, testifying in support of the bill before the House Judiciary Committee hearing the night before the tax day rally. “If you get beyond all of the legalese and statutory language in this bill, what it comes down to is this: If someone steals your pet or your appliance, and the value is over $1,500, that’s a felony, but if they steal your hard earned wages, no matter how much it is, it’s always a misdemeanor. I don’t know how we got to this place in the law, but it seems to me that it is now time to fix it.”
The other bill, if passed, will hold contractors responsible for unresolved wage theft committed by their subcontractors. Right now, contractors employ subcontractors who oftentimes don’t properly pay their workers. This law would allow officials to move “up the chain” and hold the general contractor responsible if the subcontractor fails to pay workers what they are legally entitled to.
Wage theft in the United States far outstrips all over forms of theft, combined. In 2017 it was estimated to have cost workers around $8 billion dollars.
Raising wage theft to the level of a felony will help the...
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