By Cliff Montgomery – Nov. 15th, 2009
Employers are increasingly engaging in acts of wage theft against their workers, according to recent reportsfrom the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO conducted an investigation of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), to ensure itwas properly enforcing provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
That law “is designed to ensure that millions of workers are paid the federal minimum wage and overtime.Conducting investigations based on worker complaints is WHD’s priority,” stated the GAO studies.
“GAO found that WHD frequently responded inadequately to complaints, leaving low wage workers vulnerableto wage theft and other labor law violations,” stated a GAO study released in June.
“Posing as fictitious complainants, GAO filed 10 common complaints with WHD district offices across thecountry. These tests found that WHD staff deterred fictitious callers from filing a complaint by encouragingemployees to resolve the issue themselves, directing most calls to voicemail, not returning phone calls to bothemployees and employers, and providing conflicting or misleading information about how to file a complaint,”continued the June report.
“An assessment of complaint intake processes would help ensure that WHD staff provide appropriatecustomer service,” stated the June GAO study.
The GAO has even provided clips of undercover calls, revealing the Labor Department’s poor service.
“According to WHD policies, investigators should enter all reasonable complaints into WHD’s database.However, even though all of GAO’s fictitious complaints alleged violations of the laws that WHD enforces, 5 of10 complaints were not recorded in WHD’s database.” declared the June study.
“In addition, WHD policy in one region instructs staff not to record the investigative work done on small casesin which the employer refuses to pay, making WHD appear better at resolving these cases than it is.Reassessing its processes for recording complaints would help WHD ensure that all case information isavailable,” added the June report.
“In [another] case, a WHD investigator lied about investigative work performed and did not investigate GAO’sfictitious complaint. At the end of the undercover tests, GAO was still waiting for WHD to begin investigatingthree cases—a delay of nearly 5, 4, and 2 months, respectively,” declared a second GAO study on wage theft,released in March.
“GAO [also] identified 20 cases affecting at least 1,160 real employees whose employers were inadequatelyinvestigated,” added the March report.
“For example, GAO found cases where it took over a year for WHD to respond to a complaint, cases closedbased on unverified information provided by the employer, and cases dropped when the employer did notreturn phone calls,” continued the March study.
“GAO’s overall assessment found ineffective complaint intake and investigation processes. WHD officialsoften told GAO that WHD lacks the resources to conduct an investigation of every complaint, allowingemployers in some small cases to avoid paying back wages simply by refusing to pay. GAO found that WHD’sinvestigations were often delayed by months or years,” pointed out the June report.
“Monitoring the extent to which WHD staff are able to handle the volume of complaints would provideassurance that WHD has sufficient resources available,” added the June study.
“Under FLSA, the statute of limitations is 2 years from the date of the violation, meaning that every day thatWHD delays an investigation, the complainant’s risk of becoming ineligible to collect back wages increases.However, in several offices, backlogs prevent investigators from initiating cases within 6 months. Suspendingthe statute of limitations during a WHD investigation would prevent employees from losing back wages due todelays,” the June GAO report recommended.
