City anti-wage theft ordinance lacking full penalties

The city is once again working on a wage theft ordinance, but it may be lacking any real consequences for now.

The wage theft ordinance was officially introduced Tuesday, but the teeth of the ordinance – impacts on license and permits – aren’t in place yet.

The ordinance stems from concerns, including a protest last week, about unscrupulous employment practices. City reps like Lilly Limon are all for clamping down on businesses that don’t pay their employees. But the ordinance as introduced only includes impacts to city contracts, which has far less reach than the originally discussed penalties involving permits and licenses from the city.

Last week, city staff asked for 60 days to investigate what the city can actually enforce with permits and licenses.

“I think we are going to include licensing and permits,” said city rep. Michiel Noe of district 5. “It’s just that from a legal standpoint, you have to make sure that you’re including licensing and permits that you can enforce. Otherwise it’s a worthless ordinance. That’s all we’re working out, which ones can we enforce, which ones actually have teeth, which ones are going to get the job done, and which ones are just counter-productive. I mean, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it.”

No council members are in favor of wage theft. But what some are at odds over is how to put some bite into the ordinance, and how quickly it can be done.

“I wanted us to really put the strength into the ordinance,” Limon said. “I know that this was a first reading, and I know that it’s coming back in 60 days, but if we’re fully in agreement that licenses and permits are going to be a part of the ordinance, I was hoping that we could put it on there today.”

Limon has been a vocal supporter of a strong anti-wage theft ordinance.

Noe said it’s important to make sure that the teeth of the ordinance can actually be enforced..

“That can really hurt the company,” Noe said. “It can hurt it going forward on additional jobs. And if that’s the kind of company you are in our city, we don’t want you doing additional jobs in our city. If you’re just going to come in here, get a bunch of people to do a job, get paid and then not pay your employees and leave, we don’t want you in our city.”

Limon said the city’s exposure to lawsuits is minimized by how wage theft complaints are defined.

“I think if we were to take every outcry without having to go through the legal process of adjudication, we could,” Limon said. “But since we’re setting the legal standard, and it’s been reviewed by our legal department, I think we’re in very solid ground.”