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The Business Council supports this chapter amendment that, among other things, makes the 2014 repeal of the wage theft prevention act’s annual notice provision effective immediately.
The purpose of the WTPA is to assure that workers receive full payment of wages and benefits earned. It established compliance requirements for employers, and civil recovery and civil penalty provisions applicable to violators.
Despite these important objectives, employers had raised significant concerns about the WTPA's annual notice requirement, which imposed an additional, recurring administrative burden on all private sector employers in New York State, while providing no meaningful benefit. Ironically, this mandate primarily affected employers that were already in full compliance with wage payment laws, as it was unlikely that an employer who was purposefully withholding the payment of wages was going to provide employees with an annual notice specifying what wages were owed.
We believed this change, adopted with broad, bipartisan support as Chapter 537 of the laws of 2014, represented a sensible and limited modification to the WTPA.
Likewise we support the additional amendments included in this legislation, including provisions intended to provide more effective enforcement against wage violators.
For these reasons, The Business Council supports A.1267/S.1319 and urges its approval.