New York Workers recovered a record amount of money in 2014 that their employers held back in pay and benefits. The State Department of Labor reports nearly 27,000 workers have recovered their wages in the past year totaling 30 million dollars. Tully Rinckey Partner Graig Zappia works with clients on labor laws regarding wages and benefits. He says employees need to be diligent about protecting their rights.
" You may find out about something and think its not worth it, but at least getting checked out. I always likened it to going to the doctors office. You may hope that it just goes away or its no big deal but if you don't take care of it, it may be too late. That is the thing that some employees just don't realize."
There are two main ways that workers can get shortchanged. The first is misclassification where an employee is put in a management position but ends up doing the same work as their subordinates. That should entitle them to an hourly salary as opposed to flat pay. The second way is through lunchtime violation in which a company has a policy in place that does not allow for overtime, but because the employee has work to finish they end up willingly working their lunch hour without pay.
"One of the things that you always want to look out for, depending upon what sector you work in, is that
there may be requirement thru your employer whether its the employment agreement you've signed and sometimes this involves union individuals as well. You have to look at the agreement you signed up for because there maybe some preliminary steps internally that you have to file."
After going to Human Resources, Zappia says the next recourse is a wage claim or lawsuit. He’s found when wage-theft cases come to light they can become a class-wide claim involving thousands of individuals. In Central New York over one-thousand workers recovered 430,000 in claims; in the Finger Lakes more than 1100 people received 1.3 million. Governor Cuomo says the state is actively cracking down on wage theft.
