Denver City Council to vote on helping workers recover stolen wages Monday
Denver is just one city council vote away from helping workers recover stolen wages.
The city council will take a final vote Monday night on a bill aiming to make sure workers are paid their wages and have a path to right the wrong if not. The proposed amendment would do this by giving the Denver auditor authority to seek restitution on behalf of workers, creating more accountability and, hopefully, preventing wage theft in the first place.
"What would you do if you didn't receive your paycheck this week? Or if it was only half of what you were expecting?" asked Denver City Council President Jamie Torres.
The city of Denver says one in 10 workers have had their wages stolen.
"Unfortunately, it has become an acceptable way to do business in the construction industry," said Mark Thompson, president of Carpenters Union Local 555.
The problem especially impacts low-income workers, migrants and women, and often comes in the form of nonpayment of overtime or misclassification of work.
"Contractors who choose not to participate in this criminal way of business find themselves at a disadvantage at the bid table or having to compromise their ethics to compete," Thompson said.
For many of those workers, seeking restitution in court is inaccessible, as it can be a lengthy and expensive process. Now, a proposed amendment in front of the city council aims to create a civil penalty for wage theft.
"This is civil. This creates an administrative process to get workers paid quickly without having to go to the courts," said Torres.
The bill would empower the auditor's office to directly collect on behalf of the worker, going up the stream to find liability.
"Which allows the auditor and the investigators to go up the chain of accountability in a project, to all those who benefitted from the labor, to be responsible for paying it," said Torres.
Workers can start by filing a complaint to the auditor's office. A similar process is already in place for minimum wage violations. The hope is that the amendment will increase industry self-monitoring, and stop wage theft before it happens.
The city council will hold a public hearing and take their final vote on the amendment around 7 p.m. Monday. If it's approved by a simple majority, the ordinance will go into effect as soon as the mayor signs it.
