Wage theft is the active attempt by an employer to not pay their workers what they are actually owed.

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

State law, as it currently stands in Colorado, does not recognize wage theft to be the same thing as (or even on par with) actual theft.

Wage theft is the active attempt by an employer to not pay their workers what they are actually owed.

According to the Social Justice Resource Center website, wage theft can take on many different faces. It can occur in the form of unpaid overtime for workers, payment below the legal minimum wage, misclassification of a worker’s status, illegal deductions, injured workers being pressured not to file for worker’s compensation, threats of being fired, understaffing, or even stolen tips. In the eyes of the current law in Colorado, employers who commit wage theft are guilty of a misdemeanor.

Bill HB19-1267 would change this. The “Penalties For Failure To Pay Wages” bill has passed the state legislature of Colorado, and it is now awaiting either Governor Polis’ signature or veto.

The bill passed the state senate's Third Reading with a 33-2 vote, and it passed the state house's Third Reading 64-0 with one 'other' vote.

There is a summary of the bill on the Colorado General Assembly website. It reads, “The bill defines wage theft as theft, which is a felony when the theft is of an amount greater than $2,000. The bill removes the exemption from criminal penalties for an employer who is unable to pay wages or compensation because of a chapter 7 bankruptcy action or other court action resulting in the employer having limited control over his or her assets.”

Acknowledging wage theft as actual theft would definitely impact employers who are currently paying workers less than minimum wage. If the amount of money that is withheld from a worker reaches over $2,000, upon passage of the bill, employers could then be potentially charged with felony theft.

According to the summary, the bill also “...defines ‘employee’ as any person who performs labor or services for the benefit of an employer, provides factors that are relevant for determining whether a person is an employee, and maintains the exclusions from the definition in existing law. The bill defines ‘employer’ as having the same meaning as set forth in the federal ‘Fair Labor Standards Act’, specifically includes foreign labor contractors and migratory field labor contractors or crew leaders in the definition, and maintains the exclusions from the definition in existing law.”

One of the main intentions behind the creation of this bill was to curb human trafficking. According to the bill itself, state legislators are attempting to recognize labor as a thing of value that can be subject to theft. The Colorado human trafficking council has recommended the general assembly adopt a bill like this because many of the perpetrators of human trafficking also are guilty of crimes similar to wage theft.

The bill reads, “It is in the public interest of the state to adopt the recommendation of the Colorado human trafficking council to codify that labor is a thing of value subject to theft to assist in the enforcement and prosecution of laws designed to combat labor trafficking, which is a form of modern day slavery…”

The prime sponsors of this bill are Representative Jonathan Singer, Representative Meg Froelich, Senator Jessie Danielson, and Senator Robert Rodriguez.