Iowa workers and honest employers are hurt when some businesses short paychecks, confiscate tips, misclassify workers, take unauthorized deductions and fail to pay overtime. These bad actors cheat legal workers out of their hard-earned money, drive down wages for all Iowans and are unfair to businesses that play by the rules.
An epidemic of wage theft is taking Iowa workers for $600 million annually. For fiscal year 2013, more than 600 cases of wage theft were reported to the state.
Until the Legislature took action, Iowa Workforce Development had just one wage investigator to work on the concerns of our state’s 1.3 million private sector employees. That’s why we approved enough money last year to add a second wage investigator.
Iowans should always get paid for the work they have done. Senate File 2328 will help by setting minimum standards to ensure Iowans get paid and allow wage investigators to more easily go after businesses that fail to pay what they owe.
You can learn more about the problem of wage theft in Iowa in this report from the Iowa Policy Project: www.iowapolicyproject.org/2012docs/120827-wagetheft.pdf.