Calls are growing for the state Labor Department to improve enforcement of the state's wage theft laws after a group of home health care workers filed a lawsuit against the department last week, alleging it closed investigations while disregarding evidence employers withheld their overtime pay.

The recent lawsuit filed by New York City home health aides is fueling a longstanding fight to increase the pay of home care workers and direct support professionals most susceptible to wage theft.

Senate Labor Committee chair Jessica Ramos says the Labor Department needs more resources to conduct better workplace inspections and more quickly process claims.

"What we need is for the Department of Labor to step up and to do its job, and to actually help us really figure this out and ensure that we have the tools necessary judicially in order to ensure that workers can actually get the money that they earned," Ramos, a Queens Democrat, said Tuesday.

The department must have more funding and be fully staffed, Ramos said.

"Ultimately, the Department of Labor cannot be complicit to employers who are consistently shortchanging their employees," the senator said.

The state Labor Department recovers between $24 and $30 million in wages each year that employers withhold, or steal, from their employees, according to the department. DOL has received about 2,100 wage theft complaints so far to date this year, receiving a total of 3,589 last year — nearly half of the number of reports incurred pre-pandemic with 6,757 submitted in 2018.

"Complaints declined during the pandemic due to the number of people who were out of work, and have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels," according to the department. "Over the past decade, NYSDOL had recovered and dispersed more than $360 million in stolen wages, identified over a million misclassified workers and assessed over $400 million owed in unemployment insurance contributions through both criminal cases and civil enforcement."

The department investigates wage claims through complaints, proactive sweeps and other targeted enforcement actions. The department's 513 enforcement staff enforce wage theft labor laws by investigating complaints, recovering lost wages for workers and levying fines on employers when appropriate, according to DOL.

"When a claim is filed with DOL, we open an investigation, which involves collecting data and conducting interviews," DOL officials said. "Other steps vary depending on the case. An investigation can be declared closed for any number of reasons."

Labor Standards, Public Work and Division of Immigrant Policies and Affairs have 237 enforcement and compliance staff to address wage theft from compliance/education through the complaint process, recovery of wages, filing and collection on judgments, according to the department.

Ramos noted the Labor Department's reduction in size — and power — over the last several decades. Gov. Hochul lifted the state hiring freeze shortly after assuming office in 2021 and directed the Labor Department to hire many more people to streamline processing of claims. Businesses that follow the law and properly pay employees, she added, must be protected.

"My understanding is that that hiring has actually not been completed, and even so, it's actually still not enough people," Ramos said. "We had a much more robust Department of Labor back in the '60s, and that's kind of where we're trying to get the department to so that so many workers in New York state aren't taken advantage of."

Wage theft is most rampant in low-pay industries without labor unions, like nail salons or home care workers who often make close to the minimum wage. Employers in the home care industry are known to shortchange their employees — most often women, or people of color who may not speak English.

Home care worker wages were increased to $18 an hour in the last budget, which takes effect Oct. 1. Their wages are typically excluded from the pay rate for other direct care staff, set based on the Cost of Living Adjustment.

"People are working 12 to 14 hours straight, and it's incredibly difficult work, too," Mental Health Association of NYS CEO Glenn Liebman said.

He added while not an excuse for wage theft, many providers lack the resources to adequately support their staff and agency.

Workers suspecting wages withheld from their paychecks can file complaints with the state attorney general's office or the Labor Department, but it's difficult for wages to be recovered.

Marie Negron, a home care worker from Rochester, is a 33-year-old mother of four. She makes $18.25 an hour and has worked with multiple companies since she entered the health care field in 2018. She's experienced missing work hours on her paycheck or the total coming up short.

"They would short us on hours and tell us it would be this much, and then we'd get to the client's house and it's not even that amount of hours," Negron said. "You got to argue these people down for things that they know should have been changed in the books at their office. ... Some of these companies let some of that happen because they’re only worried about the income they can bring in their office."

Negron is waiting for a petition to be resolved over wages she did not receive for work when she was new to the industry. She keeps close track of her hours worked each week to check her paystubs after receipt, and says it can take up to three weeks to receive owed backpay.

It's also common, she recounted, for companies to not communicate with workers about a patient's needs, adding state officials should conduct more inspections or reviews of providers.

"They need to be more involved and hands-on and send these people to these companies like they do on 'Undercover Boss,'" Negron said. "...The company's lack of communication and the lack of us getting our things, like pay, on time the same way they want their stuff on time [is unacceptable]. They just don’t care for your family the way they want you to care for their clients or who they bring into their office."

Ramos sponsors the Securing Wages Earned Against Theft, or SWEAT Act, to impose liens on businesses that have not fully paid employees. It died in committee this session.

"It's millions of dollars that are missing from communities, communities of color, communities like mine, and millions of dollars that are set to actually keep families in their homes, keep people with being able to access their medicine and certainly just being able to live in a very expensive city like New York," she said.