BILL
SUBJECT
DATE
This Business Council strongly supports this bill that amends the “wage theft prevention act of 2010” in two ways.
First, it repeals the requirement that each year a written pay notice be provided by all private sector employers to each and every employee in New York State, and that a written acknowledgment of the receipt of such notice be obtained from each and every employee by their employer, and be maintained by the employer for six years.
Second, it increases civil penalties for violations of other Labor Law wage notice requirements, including wage notices that must be provided to employees at the time they are hired, and expanded information that must be provided to all employees on every paystub during the year. The bill also provides that an employer that had prior violations cannot avoid enhanced enforcement for multiple violations by “shirt-changing.”
This is a balanced bill. On the one hand, it eliminates a compliance burden on business that produces no real benefit for employees, as this annual notice contains information that is replicated on each and every paystub during the year. The bill then increases the civil penalties against employers that fail to provide employees with otherwise required information regarding their employer and its pay practices.
Moreover, this law does not change long-standing Labor Law provisions that require an employer to provide any employee, upon the employee's request, a written explanation of how their wages were computed.
With these amendments, employees will continue to receive, with each paycheck, information they need to verify that they are receiving their full wages, and will retain additional opportunities to receive written pay policy information from their employers.
It also provides real compliance relief to small, midsized and large employers across New York State.
For these reasons, The Business Council supports enactment of this bill.