Guest post by: Stephanie R. Thomas, Ph.D.
When Hilda Solis was sworn in as Secretary of Labor in March of 2009, she reiterated her goal that workers receive fair treatment, a safe and healthy workplace, and receive the wage they deserve. She stated:
“To those who have for too long abused workers, put them in harm’s way, denied them fair pay, let me be clear – there is a new sheriff in town.”
A New Sheriff In Town
There has definitely been a change in attitude at the Department of Labor. They are taking a far more aggressive stance, increasing enforcement efforts, prosecuting more aggressively, and seeking larger recoveries from employers. The Department of Labor has received a significant amount of funding in its Fiscal Year 2010 budget, and is requesting even more in its proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget. According to Secretary Solis, the majority of this funding will be used to hire new investigators. These investigators are in addition to the hiring of 250 wage and hour investigators announced by Secretary Solis on November 19, 2009. In her March 10, 2010 testimony before the Congress, Secretary Solis stated that the Department of Labor “intend[s] to reduce the prevalence of misclassification and secure the protections and benefits of the laws we enforce.”
‘We Can Help’
In April of 2010, Secretary Solis announced the national “We Can Help” campaign, a public awareness campaign aimed at informing workers about their rights. The campaign includes a new website providing information on how to file a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division, and encourages employees to provide copies of pay stubs, hours of work, and other information related to the employer’s pay practices.
At the campaign launch, Secretary Solis reaffirmed her commitment to helping the nation’s low-wage and vulnerable workers:
“I’m here to tell you that your president, your secretary of labor and this department will not allow anyone to be denied his or her rightful pay – especially when so many in our nation are working long, hard, and often dangerous hours… We can help, and we will help. If you work in this country, you are protected by our laws. And you can count on the U.S. Department of Labor to see to it that those protections work for you.”
Experts are predicting a surge in wage and hour enforcement efforts. I have spoken with several employment attorneys, and all of them have indicated that wage and hour issues are the nation’s fastest growing type of litigation. One said that “multi-plaintiff wage and hour lawsuits pose the greatest employment litigation threat to American businesses today.”
The Wage and Hour Division is responsible for enforcing some of the nation’s most comprehensive federal labor laws regarding minimum wage, overtime pay, record keeping, youth employment, special employment, family and medical leave, migrant workers, lie detector tests, worker protections in certain temporary worker programs, and the prevailing wages for government service and construction contractors.
Take Proactive Measures Now
The Department of Labor’s ‘We Can Help’ campaign highlights the importance of taking a proactive stance and meeting this challenge head-on. In our next post we will review some concrete actions you can take to prepare your business.
(This guest post was authored by Stephanie R. Thomas, Ph.D. the Director of the Equal Employment Advisory and Litigation Support (EEA/LS) Division of Minimax Consulting. Her division specializes in the application of economics and statistic to employment decisions and employment related issues. Stephanie can be reached at http://www.theproactiveemployer.com.)