Wage Theft Prevention Act Is A Mountain of Costly, Useless Paper
(Long Island, NY) On Thursday, June 20, 2013, The New York State Senate passed legislation (S.3362A), sponsored by Senator John A. DeFrancisco, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to repeal the notification provisions of the Wage Theft Prevention Act, a massive, costly mandate on every employer in the state.
“Other than causing businesses to lose countless hours and waste millions of dollars, this mandate has done nothing to help employees or create new jobs,” Senator DeFrancisco said. “We have to eliminate mandates like this to make New York more competitive so businesses can focus on growing and creating jobs rather than keeping track of more paper and paying fines if they don’t.”
The Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2010, which Senate Republicans opposed, includes a requirement that each year, a written notice on wages be provided by all private sector employers to all employees. There are seven different forms depending on the type of pay (hourly, salary, etc). The forms must be provided in the primary language of each employee. A written acknowledgement of the receipt of this notice must be obtained from every employee and maintained for six years.
Businesses face stiff fines for failure to comply with the wage, notice and record keeping requirements. The penalty of $50 per employee could cost large employers thousands of dollars.
One employee benefit firm calculated that, with 7.3 million people employed in New York State, more than 51 million pages of paper are needed to comply with this law, or about 600 trees.
The bill was sent to the Assembly.
