On Labor Day, Governor Hochul signed the Construction Industry Wage Theft bill making contractors liable for wage claims made against subcontractors. The Construction Exchange and others in the industry opposed this legislation because there are existing laws in place to prevent wage theft and because this new law creates a difficult to manage risk for contractors.
When signing the bill, Governor Hochul did agree to a change that would require employees to give contractors 10 days notice to cure the violation before bringing a lawsuit. The specific language making this change has not been proposed yet, so it is uncertain how much relief it will bring.
The Construction Exchange will continue to provide updates on this legislation and will provide seminars on what contractors should do to protect themselves after the governor’s changes are made.
The law goes into effect on January 3, 2022 and will apply to all construction contracts entered into, renewed, modified or amended from that date on.