created a worker protection unit<\/a> after he entered office in 2022, and drew attention to a construction task force that handles wage theft violations.\u00a0<\/p>\nLevine told amNew York that the collaboration follows a model he had pioneered in Washington D.C. with the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in which he expanded the agency\u2019s criminal liaison so that he could refer more cases for criminal prosecution. Levine said that his idea to partner up had been received enthusiastically by the Manhattan DA\u2019s office, and that he hoped other boroughs would follow suit.<\/p>\n
For wage theft cases, whether a case ends up attracting criminal enforcement on top of civil penalties boils down to the scale \u2013 either length of time or number of employees \u2013 or whether there was intimidation or retaliation, Bragg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re complimentary pieces of the enforcement puzzle,\u201d Bragg said. \u201cWe get allegations of wrongdoing that are disturbing and problematic and illegal but don\u2019t rise to the level of a criminal case\u2026 To have a way to facilitate referrals and streamline information \u2014 to reduce silos in government is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
If an employer flat-out refuses to pay a freelance worker, for instance, civil penalties can act as one form of deterrent but a criminal investigation can make the consequences more severe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important that especially with these fly-by-night operations where you get a civil judgment and they just don\u2019t pay it \u2014 sometimes the only way to deter that kind of practice is through a criminal enforcement where people can actually face jail time,\u201d Levine said.<\/p>\n
On the flip side, Levine added, the DCWP plays a key role in ensuring that exploited workers or tenants actually get their money back.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Beyond labor enforcement, the two agencies will also share data over housing violated \u2014 DCWP enforces rental fees like the ban on broker fees. Levine said that when he and his staff attended some of the rental rip-off hearings, they heard not just about normal abuses like junk fees but egregious criminal conduct like landlords demanding sex from their tenants \u2014 a clear instance in which criminal enforcement is warranted.<\/p>\n
In instances where the violations run the gamut of both civil and criminal violations, victims can now go to either the DA\u2019s office or DCWP and let their staff sort out what the proper course of action should be.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut the burden on us to figure out how to serve the public rather than the burden on people going through really difficult moments in their lives,\u201d Levine said.<\/p>\n
Bragg said that the other strategic benefit will be for the agencies to compare data on violations involving workers, tenants or immigrant fraud scams, to get a clearer picture of their frequency and extent. That way, they can raise public awareness before these infractions get to the level of enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe certainly want to hold people accountable, but we also want to educate the public and have a deterrent effect from the work,\u201d Bragg said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Manhattan District Attorney and the city\u2019s labor watchdog announced that they would join formally forces on Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[3015,65324,75,3016,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-326150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-alvin-bragg","tag-exploitation","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-da","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}