SOUTH SHORE PRESS EDITORIAL: Gillibrand’s Labor Day Lip Service

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says she wants to protect American workers from employers who steal their wages.

Fine. Employers who deliberately cheat workers should be prosecuted. If someone works 40 hours, he should be paid for 40 hours. If an employer steals tips, refuses to pay promised wages or illegally denies overtime, there should be consequences.

But Gillibrand’s Labor Day push for the Don’t STEAL Act exposes a much larger contradiction in the Democratic Party’s claim to be the champion of working Americans.

Gillibrand and Rhode Island Rep. Seth Magaziner want to make large-scale wage theft a federal felony. In making the case for the legislation, Magaziner drew a curious comparison.

“It is outrageous,” he said, that someone can face jail time for stealing a television while getting “only a slap on the wrist” for stealing a worker’s wages.

A television?

Perhaps Magaziner should take that argument to some of his fellow Democrats.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg entered office with a “Day One” prosecution policy directing prosecutors not to pursue certain low-level offenses and downgrade commercial robberies to petit larceny.

Where is the outrage from Gillibrand over policies like that?

You don’t hear her giving Labor Day speeches about prosecutors who downgrade crimes. You don’t hear the same urgency over cashless bail, restrictions on immigration enforcement or the “defund the police” movement embraced by the progressive wing of her party.

Yet those policies can have profound consequences for the same lower- and middle-income workers Democrats claim to champion.

Walk through stores in New York City and other high-theft urban areas run by Democrats and look at the merchandise behind locked cabinets. Retailers have resorted to securing everything from detergent and deodorant to razors and toothpaste.

Those locks aren’t free. Neither are security guards, surveillance systems, insurance or merchandise that walks out the door.

Businesses ultimately have to absorb those costs somewhere. Workers, customers and shareholders can all bear the consequences.

Then there is the subject Gillibrand and her colleagues seem considerably less interested in discussing on Labor Day: immigration and wages.

The Congressional Budget Office found that the immigration surge under the Biden Administration—supported through Gillibrand through her Sanctuary State policy— is putting downward pressure on wages for lower-skilled American workers by increasing the number of people competing for similar jobs. CBO estimates the surge will add 8.7 million people from 2021 through 2026 beyond what it previously expected.

The newcomers generally earn less than comparable American workers and have less bargaining power, increasing competition particularly for workers already at the lower end of the wage scale.

And the Americans absorbing the near-term wage pressure aren’t Wall Street executives. They’re workers already struggling near the lower end of the wage scale.

A construction laborer, landscaper, dishwasher, hotel employee or other lower-wage worker understands basic economics perfectly well. Put substantially more people into the market competing for similar jobs, particularly workers expecting lower wages, and the existing worker’s bargaining power can suffer.

Unauthorized workers are vulnerable to exploitation themselves. Employers operating outside the law may pay them off the books, skirt labor protections or avoid costs associated with legitimate employment—the very problem Gillibrand purports to care about.

That can hurt both the immigrant worker being exploited and the American worker and honest employer forced to compete against lower-cost labor.

Therein lies the hypocrisy of Gillibrand’s Labor Day message.

She wants tougher federal penalties when an employer steals money from a worker’s paycheck.

Good.

But where is the same urgency when government policies put downward pressure on that worker’s wages?

Where is the outrage when repeat thieves victimize the store where that worker shops?

Where is the condemnation when prosecutors downgrade crimes?

Where is the concern when illegal employment allows unscrupulous businesses to undercut companies paying legal wages and benefits?

Protecting workers means more than creating another federal felony and issuing a Labor Day press release.

Prosecute employers who steal wages. Enforce labor laws. Protect employees from exploitation.

And enforce immigration laws too. Prosecute criminals. Support police. Protect businesses from repeat thieves. And recognize that a massive increase in the supply of lower-skilled labor can have consequences for the Americans already competing for those jobs.

If Gillibrand and her Democratic colleagues really want to spend Labor Day standing up for working people, they should start talking about all of those things.

Not just the one that makes for a convenient press release.