LANSING — House and Senate Democrats unveiled a plan today to crack down on companies committing payroll fraud, increasing penalties for bad actors while strengthening oversight to protect businesses playing by the rules. Unscrupulous companies stole an estimated $429 million in wages and overtime pay from hardworking Michiganders between 2013 and 2015, impacting more than 2.8 million people. In addition to the impact on individual workers, payroll fraud costs Michigan taxpayers $107 million a year in tax revenue. In response, state Rep. Jon Hoadley (D-Kalamazoo), whose House Bill 4878 would allow employment complaints to proceed anonymously, issued the following statement:
“People who have the courage to identify problems in the workplace should be able to come forward without fear, and the easiest way to protect them is to allow their complaints to be made anonymously. Our goal is to provide Michiganders added certainty that their attempts to hold their employers accountable won’t negatively impact their continued employment or their ability to get a job in the future, and this package helps get us there.”
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