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Regular Session, 2012
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTI ON NO. 76
BY REPRESENTATIVE SMITH
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTI ON
To urge and request the Louisiana State Law Institute to study procedures for the filing of
liens for unpaid wages and to make specific recommendations for legislation.
WHEREAS, working families need the assurance of timely pay for work performed
to meet basic living expenses for themselves and their children, and all workers should be
paid the wages due for all work performed and should be paid in a timely manner. Where
wages are not paid, workers must have a way to recover quickly and without great expense;
and
WHEREAS, failure to pay wages may occur when workers' hours are decreased, or
workers are required to work before clocking in or after clocking out, not paid overtime
when overtime is due, or not paid at all. Failure to pay wages is reported across all
industries; and
WHEREAS, for many working families living paycheck-to-paycheck, unpaid wages
means the difference between hunger and sustenance, and a safe home and homelessness;
and
WHEREAS, the state of Louisiana suffers when employers fail to pay payroll taxes
associated with the unpaid wages and fail to make contributions to the unemployment
insurance and workers' compensation systems, diminishing state and local government
revenues. In the New Orleans area alone, the Wage Claim Clinic at the Workplace Justice
Project of Loyola College of Law assisted workers with demands of over six hundred
thousand dollars in unpaid wages in 2011. These unpaid wages would have yielded
approximately fifty thousand dollars in taxes to the state of Louisiana. This represents a
fraction of total unpaid wages just in the city of New Orleans. The total unpaid revenues for
the entire state is unknown but could be many times this amount; and
WHEREAS, unpaid wages are bad for business because law-abiding businesses and
employers must compete with businesses that do not pay their fair share, leaving an unfair ENROLLEDHCR NO. 76
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playing field for honest business people. Local business suffers when workers and their
families have no money to spend; and
WHEREAS, communities suffer when working families are forced to rely on public
assistance or charities to survive or are forced to leave their homes to seek other work
because of unpaid wages; and
WHEREAS, most wage and hour disputes brought in Louisiana are resolved through
private litigation, where only twenty-five percent of wages are actually collected; and
WHEREAS, the option of filing liens has been available for construction workers,
mechanics, and other tradespeople with success over a long period of time; and
WHEREAS, construction liens filed for wages owed by contractors consistently
result in a more successful rate of recovery than private litigation; and
WHEREAS, despite statutes governing the treatment of workers' pay dating back to
1920, the current law in Louisiana anticipates litigation but offers no non-litigation remedy
for unpaid wages outside of the construction lien; and
WHEREAS, the option of filing a lien for wages would create an alternative to
litigation and could reduce the cost of litigation for Louisiana businesses.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
urge and request the Louisiana State Law Institute to study all options, specifically lien
rights, and make specific recommendations for legislation to provide an effective remedy
for unpaid wages that will be an efficient tool to obtain wrongfully withheld wages without
requiring expensive litigation, and that such legislation clearly establish that violations of
workplace laws are against the public policy of the state.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a suitable copy of this Resolution be transmitted
to the director of the Louisiana State Law Institute and that the Louisiana State Law Institute
report its findings and recommendations in the form of specific proposed legislation to the
Legislature of Louisiana on or before January 1, 2014.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATI VES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE