Cuyahoga County will no longer do business with companies determined to have stolen from employees. In a county council meeting Tuesday, eight council members voted for the anti-wage theft ordinance with one member recusing himself and another voting against the legislation.
Members of Guardians for Fair Work, a grassroots coalition advocating for pro-worker policies, came out in support of the anti-wage theft ordinance.
“All employees have the right to be confident that their work will be fully and properly compensated,” said bill sponsor and District 2 councilmember Dale Miller
Wage theft occurs when employers steal from employees by paying them less than minimum wage, illegally deducting from their tips, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, not paying them for hours on-call, not paying a rate of 150% for overtime hours and more.
An analysis by Policy Matters Ohio found that 213,000 Ohioans are victims of minimum wage violations every year and, according to the Economic Policy Institute, total earned wages not paid to workers amount to more than $600,000,000 annually, more than all other robberies combined.
“Those wage theft victims in Ohio are over 60% women and disproportionately workers of color. Latino and latina workers are most heavily affected with an average annual wage loss of almost $5,000,” said Matthew Ahn, a visiting assistant professor at the Cleveland University College of Law with Guardians for Fair Work.
“What this means is that the over 20,000 yearly victims of wage theft here in the county are being shorted over $60 million a year. In other words, the yearly impact in this county from wage theft is almost 4% of the county government’s annual budget.”
District 5 councilmember Michael Gallagher, who recused himself, and District 6 councilmember Jack Schron, who was the sole vote against the ordinance, raised concerns that the legislation is unnecessary.
“The inspector general took that microphone and said, ‘Yes, we could actually use the disbarment that we already have in place to do this.’ We also had the attorney for the county, who was sitting there during those hearings say the exact same thing.” said Schron. “The disbarment is already in place; We cannot go down this road of adjusting every single piece of legislation that we’ve passed in the last 12 years. It’s already covered.”
But other members and Guardians for Fair Work contended that more explicit language would benefit workers.
“It will strengthen Cuyahoga County’s economy to be known as a community where workers can rely on receiving their wages that they’ve properly earned,” Miller said. “Councilman Schron has observed that the inspector general probably could debar on wage theft under the broad language in current code. He’s probably correct, but such debarments have not occurred and we will benefit from an explicit reference.”
The county’s legislation was patterned similar legislation passed in Columbus and an anti-wage theft ordinance passed in the Cleveland City Council in December 2022.
However, unlike Cleveland and Columbus, Cuyahoga County will not set up a fair wage review board or conduct its own investigations. Instead, it will use its existing debarment process and rely on state and federal processes for investigating.
Wage theft determinations will be made by the inspector general and will be subject to appeal by the debarment review board. Normal debarments will last for three years.
In order to submit bids to the county, contractors will also have to certify that they haven’t engaged in wage theft in the last seven years.
For some Guardians for Fair Work advocates, the legislation is a starting point but work remains.
“While this is a momentous step for the county to take, it is not the end. This ordinance alone does not get us from $60 million in wage theft to $0 in Cuyahoga County,” said Ahn. “Wage theft is theft and a fair and equitable society would commit a far greater portion of its resources at the city, county, state and federal levels to investigating wage theft and enforcing against it.”
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This article appears in May 17-30, 2023.