Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in the Council chambers, my committee will consider two very important issues, both directly impacting the most vulnerable people in our city.
Over a year ago, my office began receiving complaints about a practice called "wage theft," a predatory employment practice where unscrupulous employers either withhold paychecks or short pay employees. The employees taken advantage of are usually poor, often don't speak much English, and sometimes are immigrants or refugees who are trying to reestablish themselves and their families. Current legal protections for these workers are weak. Civil remedies can drag on for months. The employees are left to fend for themselves.
We will continue our discussion of this problem on Thursday, including our first review of changes I will be suggesting to our City's criminal laws that would explicitly make wage theft a gross misdemeanor crime. You can watch our previous committee discussion of this issue here, including testimony from a victim of wage theft.
Also on Thursday, we will hear a presentation from the City Auditor's office about their review of geographic-concentrated crime and street disorder, including possible solutions based on what other cities have successfully done. As we continue to struggle with City finances—we may face pretty steep cutbacks this summer—we must consider alternative police deployment strategies and other innovations that will maintain public safety with less resources. This is a reality we can't avoid and it's going to take some critical and innovative thinking. (Highlights from the Auditor's report follow the jump.)
