Employers rarely get penalized for wage theft, because they settle often, especially because employees are encouraged to settle because 1) they get their money faster and 2) because the odds of the company paying go down if they don’t settle.
Oregon wants to discourage companies from their current bad behavior because at the moment there’s very little to dissuade a company from not paying and then settling, especially because they avoid any repercussions.
Bad TL;DR:
Employers rarely get penalized for wage theft, because they settle often, especially because employees are encouraged to settle because 1) they get their money faster and 2) because the odds of the company paying go down if they don’t settle.
Oregon wants to discourage companies from their current bad behavior because at the moment there’s very little to dissuade a company from not paying and then settling, especially because they avoid any repercussions.