Her employer retained her apprentice license as a nail specialist. When she tried to report this to the Internal Revenue Service, she said, the nail salon took away clients before laying her off. Her employer withheld wages if she was paid in cash, she testified. She’d regularly work 10- to 12-hour days in 2020. Along with not being given face masks or proper gloves, the 43-year-old single mother told USA TODAY Network New York that the nail salon paid daily, not hourly, for $100. What do workers say?Īngelina Palafox’s tears flowed as she testified about her experience inside a Staten Island nail salon during the pandemic. ![]() During that four-year period, New York recovered nearly $130 million. In 2010, the year before New York enacted a law heightening penalties and strengthening enforcement against wage theft, the nonprofit National Employment Law Project said New York City workers lost about $1 billion annually.Ī 2021 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found that, across the nation, more than $3 billion in stolen wages was recovered between 2017 to 2020 by federal and state labor departments, prosecutors, and through litigation. But experts say it's rampant in low-wage, non-unionized industries such as construction, hospitality, nail salons and home care. It's unclear exactly how often wage theft occurs. Separating fear, rhetoric from reality: What Title 42's end really means for New Yorkers The hearing followed a USA TODAY Network New York investigation that examined how several day laborer centers and multiple workers across Westchester County filed criminal charges against one contractor for withholding tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid wages. Lawmakers are again considering the Securing Wages Earned Against Theft, or SWEAT, bill, which Ramos has sponsored with Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, who has pushed for the legislation for nearly a decade. “This is millions of dollars that are missing from neighborhoods like mine.” ![]() Jessica Ramos, D-Queens, told USA TODAY Network New York outside of the hearing room. ![]() “The situation is just untenable,” state Sen. On Thursday, state lawmakers held a joint hearing in lower Manhattan to examine methods to address wage theft in New York State, which estimates have put at $1 billion in New York City alone. Over a decade after a law was passed to curtail wage theft, New Yorkers still struggle to find justice for day laborers and other workers who have experienced wage theft, and the employers who withhold their earnings. Watch Video: Advocate for day laborers says that wage theft is a constant danger
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