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HOME - FACTS - TABLES - VIDEOS - INFOGRAPHICS - AGENCIES - RESEARCH <br />Sproule, William. (2023). "Opinion: The Deadly Serious Consequences of Illegal Employee <br />Misclassification." City & State Pennsylvania. <br />Kev Finding: The Pennsylvania Joint Task Force on the Misclassification of Employees found that such misclassification <br />resulted in an annual loss of $91 million to Pennsylvania's Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund. Misclassification puts <br />ill-gotten gains in the pockets of tax cheats, while also defrauding the government. It encourages lawlessness and an <br />environment where workers are exploited, taken advantage of, and endangered. The UC Berkeley Labor Center found that <br />"28% of families of construction workers in Pennsylvania are enrolled in one or more safety net programs at a cost to the <br />state and federal government of $428 million per year." <br />James, Letitia; Alvin Bragg; Catalina Cruz; and Joseph Geiger. (2023). "Commentary: Wage Theft Is a <br />Serious Crime. We're Finally Treating It That Way." The Times Union. <br />Kev Finding: The Wage Theft Accountability Act has made wage theft a felony, giving prosecutors an important tool to hold <br />employers accountable. The law, which went into effect immediately after signing, allows prosecutors to charge larceny <br />for stolen wages and to aggregate stolen wage amounts, which will now provide much more effective deterrence and <br />consequences for employers who cheat workers. The Wage Theft Accountability Act recognizes wage theft for what it is: <br />a criminal act. <br />Isser, Mindy. (2023). "Employers Steal Up to $50 Billion From Workers Every Year. It's Time to Reclaim It." <br />In These Times. <br />Kev Finding: Wage theft is particularly common in nonunion construction, which often operates "underground," with <br />workers either being misclassified or being paid in cash. The industry operates under very little oversight, with regulators <br />not having the resources to enforce laws or not being able to pinpoint responsible parties due to multiple layers of <br />subcontracting. And because more than 1-in-10 construction workers are undocumented immigrants, employers are often <br />more likely to engage in abuse, as workers may not know their rights or fear retribution if they assert them. <br />Ormiston, Russell and Tom Juravich. ( ). Worker Misclassification and Wage Theft in Rhode Island. <br />Allegheny College; University of Massachusetts -Amherst; Institute for Construction Employment Research <br />(ICERES). <br />Kev Finding: Rhode Island employers misclassified 4% of the state's workforce in 2019, representing more than 19,000 <br />workers. In construction, 12% of construction employers are misclassifying workers, affecting 8% of the industry <br />workforce. Payroll fraud costs taxpayers between $25 million and $54 million annually. <br />Wage and Hour Division (WHD). (2022). "U.S. Department of Labor Announces Proposed Rule on <br />Classifying Employees, Independent Contractors; Seeks to Return to Longstanding Interpretation." U.S. <br />Department of Labor. <br />Key Finding: "The proposed rule would provide guidance on classifying workers and seeks to combat employee <br />misclassification. Misclassification is a serious issue that denies workers' rights and protections under federal labor <br />standards, promotes wage theft, allows certain employers to gain an unfair advantage over law-abiding businesses, and <br />hurts the economy at -large." <br />Chen, Lori. (2022). "Illinois Governor Signs Bills Expanding Contractors' Liability for Unpaid Wages of <br />Subcontractors' Workers." Ogletree Deakins. <br />Key Finding: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed House Bill 5412 and House Bill 4600 into law, which amend the Illinois <br />Wage Payment and Collection Act to make certain primary contractors liable for any debt owed by a subcontractor (at any <br />tier). HB 4600, the trailer bill, carves out two categories of contractors exempt from liability for such unpaid wages and <br />benefits: (1) contractors who are signatories of collective bargaining agreements on projects where work is being <br />performed and (2) primary contractors altering or repairing an existing single-family dwelling or single residential unit. <br />Additionally, HB 4600 also limits the scope of the amendment to the WPCA, applying it only to contractors doing work in <br />Illinois that exceeds $20,000 on private (i.e., nongovernment) projects, other than an owner acting as a primary contractor <br />on the owner's primary residence. <br />49 <br />