Sweeping City Ordinance to Combat Wage Theft Is Unenforceable, City Manager Says

Updated September 9, 2024, at 12:53 p.m.

A sweeping ordinance to combat wage theft passed by the Cambridge City Council in 2022 is unenforceable and oversteps the city’s authority, City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 wrote in a letter to the Council released on Thursday.

Huang said the city lacks the authority to enforce the key provision of the ordinance, which calls for denying or revoking the permit or license of any business that violates federal or state wage laws. He added that the state gives city officials the power to grant and modify many licenses or permits, but not to withhold or revoke them entirely.

“While our overall goals are the same, it is of concern that the present ordinance may not be enforceable in a number of the areas, as was intended when first ordained,” Huang wrote, asking the Council to revise the law to address concerns raised by city staff.

Huang’s response followed a June policy order passed by the Council questioning why he had not convened a Wage Theft Enforcement Committee, which would be tasked with reviewing wage theft complaints and advising city staff.

City spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick wrote in an email Monday that the city’s License Commission has not revoked any licenses or permits under the ordinance since it was approved two years ago.

The Thursday letter represents a rare point of discord between the Council and Huang, who pledged to improve the long-contentious relationship between the body and the city manager’s office. In a statement, Mayor E. Denise Simmons, who leads the Council, called Huang’s failure to implement the ordinance “deeply concerning.”

“When the Wage Theft Ordinance was passed two years ago, the City Council believed we had created a strong framework to protect workers from exploitation. Frustratingly, the lack of progress in forming the Enforcement Committee — a crucial part of this ordinance — has meant that those protections have not been fully realized,” Simmons wrote in an emailed statement.

“The time it has taken to even reach this point is unacceptable,” she added. “The longer we wait to fix this, the longer workers remain vulnerable, and that’s something we simply can’t afford, and it’s something we should not tolerate.”

Former City Councilor Quinton Y. Zondervan, the original author of the ordinance, said Huang’s “legality excuse” was “nonsense.”

“When we pass a law, it is presumed valid until it is invalidated by a court of law,” Zondervan said, “so there was no question that our law is fully legal, and if somebody wanted to challenge it, they would have to prevail in court.”

He added that Somerville has a similar wage theft ordinance that has yet to be challenged in court.

But Huang, in his letter, noted that Somerville’s ordinance has a narrower scope, adding that “the City of Cambridge ordinance is unique in that it extends the authority to all licenses and permits issued by the City.”

“The courts have held that local requirements concerning those licenses and permits are in conflict with the statutory scheme,” Huang wrote of the ordinance.

He added that the city may not be able to penalize contractors whose cases have already been considered by federal or state authorities.

But Zondervan suggested that the failure to convene an enforcement committee was a sign that the city was uninterested in cracking down on wage theft, which he said was widespread throughout the construction industry.

“Not setting up that committee is quite unacceptable, because the only thing that that committee would do is hold the city accountable on whether it was enforcing this wage theft ordinance,” Zonderan said. “The easiest way for the city to dodge accountability is to just not set up that committee.”

“If I was on the Council, I would demand that this committee be established immediately,” Zondervan added.

The Council is expected to discuss the ordinance and Huang’s concerns during their weekly meeting Monday evening.

—Staff writer Benjamin Isaac can be reached at benjamin.isaac@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @benjaminisaac_1.

—Staff writer Avani B. Rai can be reached at avani.rai@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @avaniiiirai.