This is a Good Thing

The New York Legislature has passed a bill adding criminal penalties to wage theft.

Basically, it adds wage theft to the larceny statute, and major violations could result in decades in jail:

Steal your workers’ wages and you could go to jail.

That’s the point of a bill strengthening New York’s anti-wage theft law, making it grand larceny with potential jail terms, which is headed for Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk.

The bipartisan measure, which passed the state Assembly by a 140-4 vote, would add the jail sentences to the current fines for wage theft, of at least $20,000 per occurrence.

“This bill amends the penal law to update the definition of larceny to include wage theft, to allow for the aggregation of multiple instances of wage theft against a worker into a single larceny count and to clarify that wage theft includes the non-payment of minimum wage rate and/overtime, as well as underpayment of wages promised if greater than the minimum wage,” an end-of-the-session summary from the state AFL-CIO says.

………

The length of the jail terms is unclear. According to a pro-worker legal website, wage theft as a grand larceny felony could be anything from a first-degree to a fourth-degree felony.

First degree grand larceny felons face terms of three years to 25 years for repeat offenders and one year to eight and a third years for first offenders. Fourth degree terms can range from probation to four years.

While I generally decry the increasing criminalization of law violations, well into the 1980s copyright violations were just a tort, having employers frog marched out of their offices in handcuffs for not paying their workers is a good thing.

It is the single most common form of theft in the United States, and it needs a crackdown.