TALLAHASSEE -- Business groups and workers’-rights activists are meeting behind the scenes to settle a rift over Miami-Dade’s wage protection ordinance, even as a proposal to ax the program works through the Legislature.

After lawmakers introduced a bill to preempt local governments from enacting wage theft ordinances, several workers’ groups protested, giving the proposal a contentious first committee hearing in the House.

A second hearing this week in the Senate was far more subdued, as the two opposing groups have decided to bury the hatchet and work on a compromise for helping disenfranchised workers.

“We are working diligently on an agreement,” Karen Woodall, director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, told to state lawmakers this week. Woodall acted as the designated speaker for low-wage workers and employee unions who oppose the bill.

The deal is still in the works, but options being considered include a new program for remedying wage theft disputes in small claims courts, and a statewide policy outlawing the practice, administered at the local level.

“We all agree that there should be a statewide standard,” said John Rogers, of the Florida Retail Federation, which has filed a lawsuit against Miami-Dade’s wage theft ordinance. “We don’t want to see a bunch of different local ordinances.”

Workers’ activists agree that wage theft should be addressed at the state level. The problem with the bill as it is written, they say, is that it does not provide for a statewide solution.

Woodall is hoping to craft a compromise that shields workers from unscrupulous employers who fail to pay wages for work done.

Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida with a wage theft ordinance, but Palm Beach County is considering one, and businesses fear a “patchwork” of different policies in different cities and counties.

More evidence about the size of the wage theft problem came to light on Wednesday, with the release of a new study on unpaid wages in Florida.

The study, conducted by Florida International University, found that more than $28 million in unpaid wages has been recovered by federal groups in Florida. That total is likely an undercount of the true number, said researcher Cynthia Hernandez, who wrote the report for FIU’s Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy.

“There’s probably two or three times as much that is robbed from workers and that goes unreported,” she said, noting that many workers are not covered under federal laws, and others do not know their rights.

Miami-Dade’s wage theft program, which began in 2010, has recovered more than $400,000 from employers, according to the report.