NY recovers over $1M in unpaid wages for thousands of food workers. What happened?

Over $1 million in unpaid wages has been recovered and distributed to thousands of Chipotle restaurant workers throughout New York, Gov. Hochul announced Monday.

The New York State Department of Labor recovered the unpaid wages for more than 20,000 Chipotle restaurant workers across 207 locations statewide.

“Ensuring that workers are paid every cent they are owed is a fundamental right and we are dedicated to holding employers accountable," New York State Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon said in a written statement Monday. "This significant recovery for Chipotle workers demonstrates our unwavering commitment to protecting workers' rights and fostering fair workplaces across New York State."

The New York State Department of Labor investigated and recovered over $63 million in stolen wages for almost 65,000 workers statewide in the last two years, Hochul's office said, which resulted from an expansion of the state's Wage Theft Task Force and addition of a hotline and online reporting system in 2022.

In 2023, state lawmakers held a hearing in Manhattan to further address wage theft in the state, which they estimated hit $1 billion in New York City alone. The hearing followed a USA Today Network-New York investigation into a contractor who was accused in court of withholding tens of thousands of dollars in wages from day laborers in the Westchester County area.

Here's what to know.

Wage theft schemeNY contractor accused of scamming workers. What's being done to prevent wage theft?

What wage issues were found in Chipotle investigation?

An investigation by the state Department of Labor's Division of Labor Standards into Chipotle's wage issues originated from a tip from the Workers' Compensation Board. The company was asked to review their pay records between December 2018 and September 2022 and between August 2021 and July 2023.

Here's what they found:

• Wage issues related to the correct minimum wage rate for fast-food workers, which is higher than regular minimum wage.
• Wage issues for spread-of-hours pay, which requires employees to pay additional time to workers whose shifts span more than 10 hours in any one day.

The investigation turned up additional pay issues after the state Department of Labor received another complaint alleging Chipotle stopped paying certain required wages, which the company attributed to a system error.

As a result of the probe, Chipotle directly paid all active employees and provided funds to the state Department of Labor to pay former employees. Individual recoveries ranged from $10 to over $3,600.

“These issues occurred due to inadvertent payroll programming errors," a Chipotle representative said. "As part of our commitment to supporting and properly compensating our team members, we self-corrected and properly paid many of the impacted employees last year before the Labor Department told us to do so. We have implemented changes to our payroll system to prevent this from happening again.”

The Chipotle representative also said the company voluntarily paid $396,045 prior to the state Department of Labor's mandate to pay an additional $584,062.

What to do if you feel you've been a victim of wage theft

Victims are encouraged to file a wage complaint by visiting dol.ny.gov and can email the Department of Labor for assistance at labor.sm.ls.ask@labor.ny.gov.

Emily Barnes is the New York State Team consumer advocate reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Contact Barnes at ebarnes@gannett.com or on Twitter @byemilybarnes.