Topic: Money Before Payday - Department Is Criticized on Disputes Over Wages - New York Times
The Government Accountability Office sharply criticizes the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department in two reports to be issued on Tuesday, saying it mishandled many overtime and minimum-wage complaints and delayed investigating hundreds of cases for a year or more. The Wage and Hour Division waited 17 months before assigning an investigator, the office found, and the investigator dropped the case six months later — after doing virtually no investigating — having concluded that the two-year statute of limitations was about to expire. In a fact sheet, the Labor Department noted that the back wages collected by the Wage and Hour Division more than doubled to $220,613,703 in 2007 from $96,719,108 in 1997. The accountability office said it found more than 100 cases that were closed because the wage division could not locate an employer, and 350 cases that were assigned to an investigator more than a year after the complaint was received. The Wage and Hour Division concluded that the employer owed her $4,500, but the investigator nonetheless dropped the case after the employer asserted in August 2006 that it was in such dire shape that it did not have any money to pay back wages. Miller said, “investigators from the Wage and Hour Division simply drop the ball in pursuing employers that cheat their employees out of their hard-earned wages. Learn more
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