DENVER — This year in Colorado, the amount of money that workers can recover from wage theft cases will increase to $13,000.
According to Boulder County, wage theft is defined as the withholding of wages, misclassification of an employee, underpayment of wages, non-payment of vacation pay, or illegal paycheck deductions. Right now, wage theft victims can only receive up to $7,500 of what is owed to them in Colorado.
The new amount of $13,000 will increase again in line with inflation in 2028.
“Anybody can be susceptible to wage theft. It's most often workers in the food and beverage or accommodation industries, as well as construction. But honestly, anybody with lack of access to power or resources can be a victim of wage theft, and we often see the perpetrators (are) these large corporations that have nationwide policies or franchise owners across Colorado,” said Victorie Guzman, an employment attorney for Towards Justice. “Towards Justice is a nonprofit legal organization, and a large part of our work is filing class action lawsuits on behalf of workers, but another part of the work includes advocacy policy work.”
On an upcoming episode of Real Talk with Micah Smith, experts weigh in on wage theft in Colorado and what victims can do to recover wages they are owed.
In December, Towards Justice filed a lawsuit against the JBS meat processing facility, accusing the facility of exploiting 1,000 Haitian workers.
The lawsuit also claims JBS recruited those workers under false pretenses.
Guzman said immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, can be very susceptible to wage theft.
“It's very common that people are afraid to come forward. While it's illegal for their employer to retaliate against them or report them to ICE for asserting their right to wages, it still happens, and we can file a claim for retaliation. And the governor of Colorado has announced that it is illegal to do these sort of things to workers. It doesn't stop it from happening, and so it takes very brave people to come forward if they have their immigration status at risk,” Guzman said.
Real Talk with Micah Smith airs Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on Denver7. You can watch more episodes of Real Talk by following this link.
