On New Year’s Day, Governor Cuomo vetoed the SWEAT (Securing Wages Earned Against Theft) bill, a real stab in the back to all workers in NY. After six years of discussion and vetting of the bill by the State Senate and Assembly, which finally passed the bill last summer, Cuomo waited until the last moment to shoot it down.

By vetoing SWEAT, Cuomo encourages more wage theft, which the U.S. Labor Department estimates to be $1 billion per year in NYS. Cuomo shows his real colors: he is more concerned about protecting the property and assets of law-breaking employers than upholding the rights of workers to their wages for work they have already performed.

Workers are disappointed and furious that the Governor aids and abets criminal bosses, and leaves out in the cold workers and employers that comply with the law. By vetoing SWEAT, Cuomo remains an accomplice to criminals who steal wages from workers. For instance, he created a system in which home care workers working 24-hour shifts are paid for only 12 or 13 of those hours.

For promoting these sweatshop conditions like long hours and wage theft, workers demand that Cuomo resign. He is not fit to lead New York.

In the last few months, hundreds of workers and advocates have rallied and picketed in front of Gov. Cuomo’s N.Y. City office to urge the governor to sign SWEAT. Many of the workers spoke about winning decisions in court to the tune of $700,000, $1 million, $1.8 million–but being left with nothing but a piece of paper from court.

Without SWEAT, workers try to claim their unpaid wages, but weak laws make it easy for employers to hide and transfer their assets. Workers spend years navigating legal processes and often end up settling for a small fraction of what they are owed or end up with a judgment or order that they cannot collect on.

SWEAT would strengthen the labor law by allowing workers who have been robbed of wages to put a lien on employers’ property and freeze their assets until their claim is resolved.
We ask everyone to join us in speaking out against the Governor and demanding his resignation until he rights his wrong. We need a leader who is capable of protecting the rights of working people in this state.

Join us in upcoming protests to hold Governor Cuomo to his words that he will enact protections soon and ensure the protections are the real protections provided by the SWEAT bill A486/S2844. Please call Cuomo’s office at (518) 474-8390 to let him know that New Yorkers want an end to wage theft now!

Says Efren Caballero de Jesus, “I worked at Indus Valley for nine years. I did delivery and packing and other things. I was paid $3 an hour, and no overtime pay. In 2008 my co-workers and I went to the Labor Department to complain. The boss continued to steal our wages. We decided to sue the boss in court. We won a decision of $700,000. The boss supposedly sold the business, changing the name from Indus Valley to Manhattan Valley, but we know that it’s the same boss; they just want to avoid paying us. That’s not just. That’s why we want Gov. Cuomo to sign SWEAT.”