Day laborer Alvaro Campos removed a tree for a man who agreed to pay him more than $100. When the work was done, the man paid Campos $20.

Selvin Reyes worked at a floral shop for two years, sometimes working more than 70 hours a week. He never received overtime pay, even though his pay stubs showed the beefy hours he worked.

These stories from Colorado are only two of millions of cases of wage theft, a crime officials and advocates say costs workers millions of dollars every year. Often, the victims are immigrants, legal or undocumented, because they’re reluctant, unwilling or unsure of their rights, or how to report the thefts. Reclaiming what is rightfully theirs is especially difficult for day laborers, who generally work without a contract and often for employers they don’t know and aren’t likely to meet again.

If a gig is for just one day, the employer is more likely to pay the full wage than a job that lasts a week or two. The employer for the longer-term job often pays the worker only a little at a time, promising the full amount the next day … which of course, never comes.

Colorado investigators review more than 5,200 wage claims each year, or about 430 each month, and that’s just a fraction of the whole picture, and the $1.1 million state officials help workers recoup annually represents far less than what is owed and that workers never see.

Colorado legislators passed a bill last week to make it easier for state investigators to pursue wage-theft cases and to make it easier for workers to file a claim.

“Coloradans who work a hard day’s work, deserve a fair day’s pay,” said one state senator. “When folks agree to do the dignified work of picking a field, building a house,or even of showing up and flipping burgers, they should be treated with dignity.”

Read the whole story on AuroraSentinel.com.