New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on April 25 vetoed the first of two City Council bills that would raise the wages of workers employed by businesses that 
receive government subsidies. The prevailing-wage bill would increase wages for the service workers in buildings that receive government subsidies, and its legislative brother, the living-wage bill, would raise the minimum wages for a larger group of NYC workers whose employers also receive public subsidies. Bloomberg has also promised to veto the living-wage bill after its Council passage, even assuring a court battle against the two bills if (rather, when) the Council overturns his vetoes.
As technological advances modernize the way business gets done and workers adjust their lives accordingly, much lip service is given to the idea of restructuring the contemporary work day so that employees can best take advantage of some of the benefits that the web and personal computing devices offer. Not only is technology changing many of the presuppositions about how work should get done, but people are changing what they want to get out of the very work they do, too. Jon Stein, founder of the investment firm 
Through the reinstatement of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) no-match letter-sending and heightened numbers of worksite audits, the federal government is trying to combat a seemingly out-of-control issue regarding the large numbers of undocumented workers in this country. Employers who face these letters and/or worksite investigations which mandate them to produce I9 employment-eligibility forms for all employees may eventually find out that, unwittingly, they have been employing undocumented workers for years. Some businesses have lost record numbers of their employees from these stepped-up procedures.
recently, with the West Village hookah bar/lounge and restaurant Veranda admitting to wage violations that will cost the owners $200,000 in total. Under the almost-year-old Wage Theft Prevention Act (WTPA) of NY $150,000 will go toward repaying employees who were compensated below the hourly minimum wage and not given overtime wages, when due. The remaining $50,000 will go toward lost wages, damages and penalties for the wrongful termination of two employees who first brought the wage violations to light. It is only via the WTPA that such large penalties due to retaliation are incurred.
