Lawyer fights against wage ordinance

The St. Petersburg City Council will give a new localized wage theft ordinance a second reading April 16, but one attorney hopes to stop it.

Andrew Froman, a Tampa-based partner in the national labor and employment law firm Fisher & Phillips, tells Coffee Talk that with federal, state and even common law protections already in place, the measure in front of the St. Pete council is overkill. “It's entirely unnecessary,” he says. “There are multiple avenues already in existence that allow for an employee who thinks he has been denied proper payment of wages by his employer to seek redress.”

Even worse: Froman, who represents employers in these disputes, says pursing wage theft claims through federal court could award wronged employees double what they owe.
Councilwoman Darden Rice has pushed the proposal, claiming federal and state systems are too cumbersome to provide effective relief. Her program is similar to one in Miami-Dade County, which forces companies to appear before a hearing examiner who determines if wages were properly paid. If those wages weren't paid, the company would have to
compensate the employee not only for wages, but also for liquidated damages.

Yet even if Florida laws aren't strong enough to tackle wage theft, common law -- handling claims of unjust enrichment -- is more than enough for employees to get what they deserve in wages, says Froman. He cited an ongoing Manatee County case, where someone who accused his employer of not being paid properly made such a claim.

“At the end of the day, all these start to weigh on employers, especially small employers,” Froman says. “It's yet another thing they have to worry about, and it's unnecessary.”