The largest of them, the New Haven police department, received about $2,500 after reporting a local business that was found to be improperly classifying employees as independent contractors, a tactic often used by employers that want to cut costs illegally. The other $2,500 went to the Labor Department. Bruckhart noted that allegations of unpaid wages are not under their purview, so they always refer those complaints to the state Labor Department. The labor violations referred by police departments ranged from not providing pay stubs to not paying minimum wage or overtime, but the violations cited most often involve workers’ compensation law, as was the case in New Haven. Current state law requires companies to have workers’ compensation insurance for their employees so that benefits can be provided to employees who are hurt or get sick on the job, but violations of this law, by misclassifying employees as independent contractors, have been found over 4,000 times by the Wage and Workplace Standards Division in the state Labor Department.
Cities can get money from reporting labor violations, but few have