By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance
Sponsors of a bill to ramp up penalties for businesses committing wage theft promised to make changes to it Thursday but weren’t yet ready to offer specific amendments, leading to a partisan split as the bill advanced out of its first legislative committee.
House Bill 1001, authored by House Majority Leader Monica Duran of Wheat Ridge and fellow Democratic Rep. Meg Froelich of Greenwood Village, seeks to attack the crime in a different way than their 2024 legislation, which Democratic Gov. Jared Polis vetoed. Rather than focus solely on the construction industry and seek compensation from general contractors when subcontractors fail to pay workers, the new bill takes aim at employers in all sectors, seeking specifically to punish what supporters call repeat and willful offenders.