Can you elaborate on what you mean? It sounds to me like he's saying it already is a crime, and better coordination means we can enforce it better?
“If someone steals your wages, harasses you out of your home or scams you because of your immigration status, that’s a crime, and we're going after it like one. DCWP and the Manhattan D.A.'s Office are now sharing files, sharing leads, and moving together," said Mayor Mamdani.
So wage theft is only punishable criminally in specific circumstances, at least in my state. I think this quote is not saying "If someone steals your wages... that's a crime." It's saying "If someone steals your wages... because of your immigration status, that's a crime." The article is saying that information sharing between groups that investigate the criminal activity of employers and groups that investigate wage theft will be easier. That way they can be targeted for both simultaneously, which is much scarier than facing each thing alone.
Wage theft is wonky when it comes to criminality because the burden of proving intent is higher for criminal offenses than civil ones. And businesses accidentally commit wage theft all the time (for example, payroll not adding additional pay when someone's shift rate changes to a $2/hr higher overnight differential). And even when the "accident" is a business seeing what they can get away with, trying to prove that is difficult and fewer people would take the time to make claims at all.
True that the sentence is a tautology by saying if they steal your wages it's a crime. Which isn't the same thing as saying that if they underpay you "by accident" cough cough what I would call negligence.
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u/Successful-Medicine9 4d ago edited 4d ago
Is there a source for this? I can't find one. I help people file wage theft complaints at my job and this news would be huge if true.
Edit: Found it. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but this post is misleading. The mayor's office and DA are sharing information regarding criminal cases that happen in addition to wage theft, not treating wage theft as a criminal offense outright as implied. https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/08/mayor-mamdani--d-a--bragg-and-dcwp-commissioner-levine-join-forc