In recent months, crime has dominated public discourse in New York City. Notably absent from the discussion, however, is one of the most prevalent forms of crime in the US: Wage theft. It’s a crime that can take many different forms, including businesses stealing workers’ tips, paying them less than the minimum wage, or denying them access to paid sick leave.
A 2017 Economic Policy Institute report found that American workers likely lose $15 billion annually to minimum wage violations alone. That’s more than the value of property crimes committed each year, and it comes out of the pockets of low-income workers who are disproportionately people of color, women, and immigrants.
Should the US economy slip into another recession we will likely see an increase in such labor law violations, as unemployment increases and workers become more vulnerable. A study from Rutgers University’s Center for Innovation in Worker Organization found that during the 2008 recession increasing unemployment was closely tied to wage theft by employers.
Enforcement against wage violations lies at the State level (where there is considerable room for improvement in enforcement around wage and hour laws and misclassification). But there’s no reason for New York City to wait for the State to act; it’s often led the way in innovative labor policy, enacting paid sick leave, regulations around unpredictable shift scheduling, as well as a minimum pay rate for app-based food delivery workers and for-hire...
The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) has issued a formal apology to Professor Wazi Apoh, Dean of the School of Arts and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Ghana, following the c...