NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
 
BILL NUMBER: A2022A
SPONSOR: Cruz
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the penal law, in relation to wage theft
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to allow prosecutors to seek stronger penal-
ties against employers who steal wages from workers.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Amend the Penal Law to include wages in the definition of "property."
Subsection one of section 155.00 of the Penal Law is amended to read as
follows:
Penal Law § 155.00 Larceny; definitions of terms.
"Property" means any money, wages, personal property, real property,
computer data, computer program, thing in action, evidence of debt or
contract, or any article, substance or thing of value, including any
gas, steam, water or electricity, which is provided for a charge or
compensation.
Add a new subsection to the Penal Law's larceny statute to define the
term "workforce."
Section 155.00 of the Penal Law is amended by adding subsection 10 to
read as follows:
Penal Law § 155.00 Larceny; definitions of terms. 10. "Workforce" means
a group of one or more people providing services in exchange for wages
for one person or entity. Expand the definition of larceny to allow
aggregation of victims into a workforce in larceny cases where the prop-
erty stolen is wages.
Subsection two of section 155.05 of the Penal Law is amended by adding
subdivision f to read as follows:
Penal Law § 155.05 Larceny; defined.
2. Larceny includes a wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of
another's property, with the intent prescribed in subdivision one of
this section, committed in any of the following ways: (f) By wage
theft. A person obtains property by wage theft when he agrees to hire a
person to perform services and the person perform s such services and
the defendant withholds such wages from said person. In a prosecution
for wage theft, for the purposes of venue, it is permissible to aggre-
gate all takings from one person from one defendant, into one larceny
count, even if the takings occurred in multiple counties. It is also
permissible to aggregate takings fro m a workforce into one larceny
count.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Wage theft is a form of worker exploitation, akin to labor trafficking
and other violations of employees' rights. Its perpetrators take advan-
tage of some of our communities' most vulnerable populations, including
undocumented immigrants and low-income workers, who often are not
empowered to stand up for themselves.
According to Cornell University's Worker Institute, wage theft in New
York accounts for nearly $1 billion in lost wages each year and affects
tens of thousands of workers - that's close to $20 million per week.
Conventional wisdom suggests that wage theft solely affects low income
workers who are cheated through subminimum wage or unpaid overtime
schemes. However, the reality is that the problem is much larger in
scope and much more pervasive, especially within the construction indus-
try in New York.
By committing wage theft and associated frauds, these companies unfairly
lower their costs, making it nearly impossible for law-abiding busi-
nesses to compete. And every taxpayer shoulders the effects of wage
theft because when the workers are underinsured, it forces government to
step in and incur costs that should have been borne by their employer.
The "Wage Theft Initiative," a collaboration between seven local
District Attorney's Offices (which includes all five New York City DA's,
plus Westchester and Nassau Counties), the Department of Investigation,
the New York City Comptroller's Office, the New York State Department of
Labor, and the New York State Attorney General's Office, has resulted in
ten criminal cases and accounted for more than $2.5 million in stolen
wages affecting over 400 construction workers, since just December 2017.
But much more must be done to protect hardworking New Yorkers from
unscrupulous employers. When a defendant steals wages from various
employees on an ongoing basis, his intent is not to steal individually
from one worker, but to steal from his workforce. In People v. Cox, 286
N.Y. 137, (1941), the court held that "the People may prosecute for a
single crime a defendant who, pursuant to a single intent and one gener-
al fraudulent plan, steals in the aggregate as a felon and not as a
petty thief."
Therefore, the Penal Law's section on larceny should be amended to allow
aggregation of victims into a workforce in larceny cases where the prop-
erty stolen is wages. This would allow prosecutors to seek stronger
penalties against employers who steal wages from workers.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
This is a new bill.
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This bill shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
2022--A
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 14, 2021
___________
Introduced by M. of A. CRUZ, AUBRY, BARNWELL, DeSTEFANO, DICKENS,
FERNANDEZ, COOK, FALL, GRIFFIN, EPSTEIN, J. RIVERA, GOTTFRIED,
WILLIAMS, McMAHON, WEPRIN, VANEL, McDONOUGH, MONTESANO, RAMOS --
Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. CARROLL, GALEF, THIELE -- read once
and referred to the Committee on Codes -- committee discharged, bill
amended, ordered reprinted as amended and recommitted to said commit-
tee
AN ACT to amend the penal law, in relation to wage theft
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 1 of section 155.00 of the penal law, as
2 amended by chapter 514 of the laws of 1986, is amended and a new subdi-
3 vision 10 is added to read as follows:
4 1. "Property" means any money, wages, personal property, real proper-
5 ty, computer data, computer program, thing in action, evidence of debt
6 or contract, or any article, substance or thing of value, including any
7 gas, steam, water or electricity, which is provided for a charge or
8 compensation.
9 10. "Workforce" means a group of one or more people providing services
10 in exchange for wages for one person or entity.
11 § 2. Subdivision 2 of section 155.05 of the penal law is amended by
12 adding a new paragraph (f) to read as follows:
13 (f) By wage theft.
14 A person obtains property by wage theft when he or she agrees to hire
15 a person to perform services and the person performs such services and
16 the defendant withholds such wages from said person. In a prosecution
17 for wage theft, for the purposes of venue, it is permissible to aggre-
18 gate all takings from one person from one defendant, into one larceny
19 count, even if the takings occurred in multiple counties. It is also
20 permissible to aggregate takings from a workforce into one larceny
21 count.
22 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD06159-03-1