North Shore Cities Seek Regional Approach To Worker Wage Protection

SALEM, MA — Two North Shore cities took a stand against worker wage theft and unscrupulous employers in recent days when their respective City Councils passed ordinances requiring those companies that contract with the city to follow protocols that help ensure employees are paid properly.

Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo on Monday signed the Ordinance relative to Wage Theft sponsored by City Councilors Jeff Cohen and Lev McClain that received second passage at Thursday's City Council meeting. The Peabody City Council also passed the Responsible Employer Ordinance sponsored by City Councilors Jon Turco, Thomas Gould and David Gamache which requires contractors that bid on city projects to employ a certified apprenticeship program to help ensure qualified and properly paid workers.

Turco said he also planned to bring other aspects of the Salem ordinance to the Legal Affairs Committee, and eventually before the City Council, in the coming weeks and months to expand employee protections in Peabody, while Cohen told the Salem City Council that he had spoken to Beverly and Peabody officials about adopting similar provisions in those cities.

"I hold a responsibility to the residents of the city to make sure the city is taking the lead in making sure money is not being taken out of their pockets — money we are spending," Turco said in making a motion for the Peabody proposal that he said has been multiple years in the making.

The Salem ordinance creates an online complaint portal through the City Soliticor's office that affected employees can use to report wage complaints and violations. It also creates a process for verifying employees' status with employers, bars contractors that have been found to have committed wage violations from bidding for city projects, and sets penalties for companies who commit wage violations as active contractors or recipients of municipal tax relief.

Pangallo called the Salem ordinance a "landmark measure" that "leverages the power of city contracts and benefits to better ensure workers receive fair pay for their labor."

"We want businesses to know that if they screw their employees, they're not welcome here and those victimized to know we stand with them and they can depend on us," Cohen posted on social media on Monday.

When the ordinance was introduced to the Salem City Council this summer, Councilors argued that wage theft disproportionally affects minority and low-income workers, especially in the city's expansive bar and restaurant scene.

Turco told the City Council that wage theft is rampant in the construction business as well with unqualified workers being hired at unfair wages and some contractors inflating profits by paying workers under the table and avoiding tax and pension contributions.

"Most times we have workers and companies that do the right thing," Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt told the City Council while speaking in favor of the ordinance. "But certainly there have been moments in different projects where I've questioned certain things that are taking place. This ordinance addresses those concerns that worry me."

The Peabody ordinance passed by a 10-1 vote on Thursday with the provision that it will be brought back before the Legal Affairs Committee for reexamination one year from now.

"I was rather flabbergasted to find out the extent of wage theft in our state," State Rep. Sally Kerans (D-Danvers) told the Council while speaking in support of the ordinance, along with State Rep. Thomas Walsh (D-Peabody). "It is completely un-American to me that you hire someone, and then they work their 40 hours, and you don't pay them for their 40 hours, or you don't pay them at all.

"It's a very real, known problem."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)