On September 17, Mayor Martin Walsh announced additional protections for workers employed by businesses that have been issued food and/or liquor licenses.

This announcement builds and strengthens the Wage Theft Executive Order the Mayor signed in October 2014, which established disclosure and payroll certification requirements for vendors contracting business with the City of Boston. The executive order became effective on January 1, 2015.

“It’s illegal to deny fairly earned wages, and we must do more to protect our workers from this practice,” said Mayor Walsh. “By working with the Licensing Board, we are creating another tool to hold employers accountable and empower workers.”

"We are thrilled that Mayor Walsh is taking bold action to ensure workers are guaranteed an honest day's pay for an honest day's work," said Darlene Lombos, Executive Director of Community Labor United. "We join him in sending a message to those unscrupulous employers who cheat workers that they can no longer undercut responsible businesses that play by the rules."

In recent years, wage theft has had an increasingly detrimental impact on local, state, and national economies. Investigations show that wage violations cost workers more than $56.4 million weekly (or almost $3 billion annually) in NYC, Chicago, and Los Angeles alone. In 2012, the U.S Department of Labor found that 34 Boston-area restaurants owed nearly $1.3 million in back pay to almost 500 employees.