To: Hillsborough County Commission
Hillsborough County Commissioners: Vote YES on Wage Theft Recovery Ordinance
The Hillsborough County Commission is considering a Wage Theft ordinance. If passed, this ordinance will provide a mechanism for recovery of lost wages.
Workers and their families are hurt by not getting appropriate payment for their work. Employers are hurt by unfair competition when their competitors use wage theft as a business model. The community is hurt as spending by workers is curtailed, and tax revenue is not collected.
Why is this important?
What is wage theft? Wage theft is any form of illegal underpayment or non-payment of wages earned by workers and can take various forms.
• Overtime: employer fails to pay 1 ½ times the regular pay rate after 40 hours of work in a week.
• Minimum wage: employer pays less than the minimum wage.
• Being required to “work off the books:” working through lunch breaks or other required breaks, forced to work after having “clocked out” or after work hours are done, being compelled to attend meetings or events as part of the job, but not being paid to do so.
• Not giving a final paycheck: this type of wage theft often happens with employers who go out of business or who move.
• Stealing some (or all) of an employee’s tips: the employer is not entitled to any of an employee’s tips, which are part of his or her wages.
• Falsifying the records of hours worked: shortening the official record of hours worked to be less than the actual hours.
• Misclassifying an employees as an “independent contractor:” classifying an employee as an independent business steals from that employee by requiring him or her to lose benefits such as unemployment compensation and workers compensation, and transfers extra taxes onto him or her.