House Democrats Introduce Legislation to Protect Workers from Wage Theft
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leading House Democrats introduced legislation today to ensure that workers do not lose wages while the U.S. Department of Labor investigates wage theft by some employers who may drag out such investigations. The legislation is in response to a comprehensive Government Accountability Office investigation into the federal government agency responsible for taking and investigating complaints of minimum wage, overtime and child labor violations.
The Wage Theft Prevention Act (H.R. 3303) is based on a GAO recommendation made in a report released today. The bill would ensure that delays in investigating claims of wage theft will not result in a permanent loss of back pay for workers. The GAO found many investigations of wage theft were inadequately handled by the Bush administration’s Wage and Hour Division and were dropped because the statute of limitations is too short and investigations took too long. To ensure that workers do not lose their hard-earned wages, the bill would freeze the statute of limitations from the date an employer is informed of an investigation until the agency notifies the employer that the investigation has concluded.
“This legislation is a simple solution to the very real problem of workers’ pay being stolen by unscrupulous employers,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “Especially in this economy, hard-working Americans shouldn’t have to worry about whether they are being paid properly. This bill will hold those responsible for stealing workers’ wages by helping to ensure that legitimate complaints can be properly investigated.”
“Wage theft is a serious problem in this country and affects those who can least afford to lose their pay,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-sponsor of the bill and chair of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee. “These same workers generally cannot afford a private attorney to recover their wages and must rely on Department of Labor to pursue these claims. This bill will give the Department time to do this.”
An undercover investigation by the GAO found that the Wage and Hour Division’s complaint intake, complaint resolution, and investigation processes were ineffective and discouraged workers from lodging wage theft complaints. In several of the division’s regional offices, staff were directed to only record successful complaint resolutions in its database, making the Wage and Hour Division statistics appear better than they were. In addition, the GAO found that because of the lack of resources and staff, investigations on wage theft and child labor violations were frequently delayed by months or years.
Under the Obama administration’s leadership, Department of Labor has announced that the agency plans on hiring 250 investigators to the Wage and Hour Division.
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