From Chris’ interview for the Masters of Employment Law on ReelLawyers.com
Getting paid for the work you perform is fundamental to the employer-employee relationship. Yet, the wage theft attorneys at Lenzo & Reis have witnessed the growing problem of wage theft at both at the national and state levels. In general terms, wage theft involves employers’ failure to properly or fully compensate employees. While wage theft may take various forms, it commonly involves the denial of minimum and overtime pay to workers, the failure to properly compensate employees for all work performed, withholding of workers’ last paychecks, and/or the failure to pay employees on time as required by law.
To address the problem of wage theft, New Jersey enacted one of the toughest wage theft laws, with some of the strongest anti-retaliation provisions, in the country on August 6, 2019. Interestingly, the Wage Theft Act is neither a newly enacted nor amendment to an existing civil statute; instead, it is an amendment to the New Jersey Criminal Code, N.J.S.A. 2C:40A-2. While still a relatively new law, our lawyers at Lenzo & Reis are well-versed in the protections of the Wage Theft Act.