The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) has posted the names of 14 additional businesses to its Workplace Accountability in Labor List (aka The WALL), bringing to 82 the total number of delinquent employers with outstanding liabilities for violations of state wage, benefit or tax laws.
Collectively, the 14 businesses that have failed to resolve their outstanding liabilities with NJDOL and/or Treasury despite repeated requests owe just over $956,000 in wages and penalties to their employees and the state.
“Our mission is to ensure all workers are legally classified and fairly compensated and that no employer gains a competitive advantage by skirting their responsibilities under the law,” said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo. “This powerful enforcement tool is reserved for bad actors who have refused multiple opportunities to come into compliance, and we plan to use it to the fullest extent allowed.”
The WALL is an online, downloadable, and viewable public listing of companies that have shortchanged their workers and state taxpayers by violating state wage, benefit, or tax laws and against whom a final order has been issued by the NJDOL or other agency for such violations. The WALL is updated monthly, with new businesses added and any business that pays its fines and fees in full deleted from the posting.
The WALL was established through bipartisan action (P.L.2019, c.366) to combat worker misclassification and exploitation, which cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in missed taxes per year. It gives NJDOL power to protect fair-minded businesses across the state from employers who undercut their workers to gain a competitive edge. Any business whose name appears on The WALL is barred from public contracting with state, county, or local governments until they pay their liabilities in full.
"Our Office of Strategic Enforcement and Compliance has a duty to ensure a safe and respectful work environment for New Jersey’s entire workforce," said Director Peter Basso. "The WALL helps us enforce state labor laws and go after employers who use their leverage to exploit their workers."
Posting on The WALL is separate from – and may be in addition to – other accountability measures, such as public contractor debarment and business license suspension or revocation. State, county, municipal and school procurement officers must cross-reference The WALL before awarding public contracts, as they do with the debarment list.
Businesses receive letters warning that their company’s name will be posted to The WALL unless they remedy their outstanding liabilities; they are given 20 days from when they receive the notice to pay in full or challenge their placement on The WALL.
The inaugural posting of bad actors went live in September. Additional businesses with outstanding violations were added in October and November.
The WALL can be viewed or downloaded here.
Questions about the WALL should be directed to OSECInquiries@dol.nj.gov.
For a comprehensive list of questions and answers about The WALL, visit nj.gov/labor/wall.
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne, NJ, is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over five decades, the Law Offices of Jon Gelman 1.973.696.7900
jon@gelmans.com has represented injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational illnesses and diseases.
Blog: Workers' Compensation
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Recommended Citation: Gelman, Jon L., Shameless, www.gelmans.com (12/14/2023), https://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/2023/12/shameless.html
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