Thursday, April 26, 2012

Q: What amount of fines has Maryland collected under the Workplace Fraud Act of 2009?

A:  Zero.


  I have written about the Maryland Workplace Fraud Act of 2009 in the past.  The law was subject to intense disagreement between the Maryland Department of Labor and the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.  The Law  grants to the Maryland Department of Labor the authority to investigate the misclassification of employees as independent contractors in the construction and landscaping industries. The Act allows an employer who misclassifies an employee but does not do so knowingly to come into compliance within 45 days without penalty. Employers who "knowingly" misclassify employees, however, may be subject to a penalty of up to $5,000 per misclassified employee. 


A recent fiscal note to an amendment to the Act states the following about its enforcement:

As of December 2011, DLLR’s Task Force on Workplace Fraud had conducted  660 investigations under the Workplace Fraud Act, and issued 12 citations, which  translates into a 98% compliance rate.  The task force collected $33,000 in civil fines  from employers for failing to provide employment records in a timely fashion, but it has  not assessed fines for misclassification because the cited employers have either come into compliance or have their cases still pending.

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