Q&A
HPD's perspective on wage theft and enforcement mechanisms
1:04:19
·
80 sec
Lucy Joffe from HPD responds to Council Member Restler's concerns, explaining HPD's perspective on wage theft and enforcement mechanisms. She emphasizes that wage theft is a widespread issue that requires vigilance and aggressive enforcement.
- Acknowledges that wage theft occurs in various circumstances, including prevailing wage projects
- Emphasizes the need for vigilance and aggressive enforcement of existing labor laws
- Suggests that the proposed legislation may not necessarily solve the wage theft problem
- Highlights the importance of structuring effective enforcement mechanisms
Carmen N. De La Rosa
1:04:19
Look, we see
Lucy Joffe
1:04:21
wage theft unfortunately happening in a very wide range of circumstances chances.
1:04:25
Right?
1:04:25
You can see it on prevailing wage projects.
1:04:27
That's why we have a whole unit for it.
1:04:29
So I'm not sure that that would solve the problem.
1:04:31
I'm not confident enough.
1:04:32
Unfortunately, this is just something that we have to deal with and have to be vigilant about and have to be aggressive about.
1:04:38
And so whether or not this bill is a good idea, I think, is separate from a really important discussion about enforcing the requirements of state and federal labor laws.
1:04:50
And if that, I don't know any I don't know about, unfortunately, that particular project or that that contractor.
1:04:56
But there is a process we mentioned this a bit earlier by which those contractors actually can lose their ability to work on projects.
1:05:04
And so we want to make sure that when we are, how having these conversations about wages, about wage theft, that when we're talk that we're talking about really structuring enforcement mechanisms in a way that they're best enforced, and that we have the really important conversation about wage wage theft and make sure that people are not experiencing these things, but we have unfortunately continued to see them in all manners of wage administrations.
1:05:31
And so I think it's less about the vehicle and more about ensuring that we are a aggressive in enforcing all of the applicable requirements and laws, defensively.
