According to the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, compensable hours include all the time that an employee is required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty, or at a prescribed workplace. According to the lawsuit, the car wash company’s owners would clock out employees when the amount of business dropped, then clock employees back in when business picked up. The employees, however, were required to stay at work while they were off the clock.

The Wage and Hour Division says that problems adhering to Fair Labor Standards typically arise when employers “fail to recognize and count certain hours worked as compensable hours.”

In a report by the Tennessean, Megan Macareg, director of Middle Tennessee branch of Jobs with Justice, a national organization that defends workers against unfair employment practices, said the car wash employees “didn’t have anywhere to sit or eat.”

“To a large extent, the company has cleaned up its act, but the stealing of wages is a massive problem,” Macareg said.

Wage theft activist and author Kim Bobo traveled to Nashville to attend a rally celebrating the settlement. Bobo is the executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a Chicago-based organization that appeals to the shared convictions of all religions in protecting the rights of waged workers.

Bobo, who believes that wage theft has become an epidemic in the U.S., blames corporate greed, the tough economy, and lack of government involvement. “Over the last decade, we have seen an abdication of the role of the government enforcing labor laws,” she said.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Nashville workers settle FLSA complaint against employer

Build-A-Bear Workshop, an international retailer with more than 400 locations worldwide, allows customers to design and create their own teddy bears. The Wage and Hour Division found that many Build-A-Bear’s Midwestern retail locations violated government regulations prohibiting workers under 18 years old from performing hazardous activities and working in potentially dangerous environments.

In one instance, 16- and 17-year old employees routinely loaded and operated industrial trash compactors. Another violation involved underage employees operating and riding in a freight elevator.

Enrique Rodriguez, the Wage and Hour Division’s district director in St. Louis, told Wichita’s KAKE that “Every year, young employees are injured while performing prohibited work.” His office launched regional investigations as part of the child labor mall initiative, aimed at bringing shopping malls into better compliance with FLSA regulations.

“The department’s hazardous orders regulations exist to promote safety and prevent workplace injuries in the nation’s youth workforce,” he told KAKE.

Rodriguez also told KAKE that Build-A-Bear has fully cooperated with the Wage and Hour Division and has taken the proper measures to avoid future violations.

Earlier this year, the same child labor initiative uncovered multiple violations of the FLSA youth employment provisions by retail establishments Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. A random investigation of 19 stores, restaurants, and movie theaters at 3 different malls found 50 minors operating dangerous equipment such as trash compactors and paper balers.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Teddy bear company cited for FLSA child labor violations

The fine was the first one issued by the Wage and Hour Division under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 – a statute that raised the penalty to $50,000 for each violation of child labor laws resulting in death or injury. Subsequent violations of the same laws result in maximum fines of $100,000.

The demolition company must also pay more than $3,000 for failing to keep accurate records, which investigators believe may have contributed to the accident. Additionally, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the company nearly $24,000 in penalties for seven safety violations at the work site where Luis Montoya, 15, was killed.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, herself a longtime crusader for workers’ rights said “the federal rules governing the employment of minors are clear, and the consequences for failing to comply are serious.”

“Young workers must be employed safely and legally,” she said.

The Wage and Hour Division lists on its web site industries that it deems too unsafe for workers younger than 18. “Occupations involved in wrecking, demolition, and shipbreaking operations” are among those trades listed as unfit for minors.

The Wage and Hour Division’s investigation of the company also uncovered extensive violations of FLSA overtime pay regulations. The agency cited Demon Demo on violations involving 126 workers and ordered it to pay $108,869 in back wages.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution suggested that Montoya’s family may seek legal action against the demolition company. “They don’t feel fully vindicated,” the family’s attorney told the AJC. “This is a company that received a $50,000 fine, yet this is the third time this company has been in violation.”

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Teenager’s death leads to multiple FLSA and OSHA fines for Georgia company

In March, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced her intentions to revamp and empower the Wage and Hour Division, saying that she would increase the Division’s staff size by a third in an effort to “refocus the agency on [its] enforcement responsibilities.” The addition of new field investigators, she said, “will reinvigorate the work of this important agency, which has suffered a loss of experienced personnel over the last several years.”

Last year, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Wage and Hour Division’s enforcement of FLSA laws dropped to record lows under the Bush Administration. Most abused by employers were FLSA regulations guaranteeing minimum wage and overtime compensation. Abuse of the laws grew while enforcement of the laws shrank, creating what wage theft activist Kim Bobo called a “national crisis at this moment in our nation” to the tune of $19 billion per year in unpaid overtime alone.

Bobo, who is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Worker Justice program, supported the GAO investigators in their findings. “The wage and hour division is so understaffed,” Bobo said, “that it is actually now doing fewer investigations of wage and hour complaints than it did in 1941, the year it was founded. Wages are simply being stolen.”

The appointment of Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor is as symbolic as it is significant, and promises to bring about change for workers who have endured workplace abuse for years. The daughter of immigrants from Nicaragua and Mexico, Solis is both personally and professionally familiar with the plight of the working class, and particularly the struggles of the working class immigrant.

“The U.S. Department of Labor is the voice for working families, and I am dedicated to ensuring compliance with federal labor laws to both strengthen our economy and protect workers in this country,” Solis said.

Sources: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/media/press/whdpressVB3.asp?pressdoc=national/20090305.xml

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13416/

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.3/maclean.php

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Solis works to revamp and empower Wage and Hour Division

Then, last week, after finding the company and its owners to be in contempt for not paying the damages as ordered in the 2007 ruling, a federal judge smacked the cleaning company with another $277,791 in post-judgment interest, calculated at 4.44 percent from the original summary judgment’s date. Additionally, the judge ordered fines of $2,000 per day against the cleaning company and $200 each per day against Maldonado and Rubio for every day the back wages aren’t paid in full.

A district office of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in West Covina, Cal., first heard complaints about the way the cleaning company treated its employees when it took part in the Employment Education and Outreach (EMPLEO) – a coalition of private organizations and government agencies that helps Hispanic workers and employers with labor issues and concerns.

An investigation by the DOL turned up multiple minimum wage and overtime violations. Additionally, company managers did not keep accurate records of employee hours worked.

“The Department of Labor will not hesitate to take action to ensure workers receive the compensation they have worked hard for and earned,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement last Thursday.

Solis, who was born in California to immigrant working class parents from Nicaragua and Mexico, was named as the Plaintiff in the case, filed in July 2006 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Speaking at the Forum of the Workers of the Americas in Trinidad, Solis suggested her agency would finally be able to ramp up its investigations of companies that treat their employees unfairly and illegally.

Solis served eight years in Congress during the Bush Administration before President Obama nominated her as Labor Secretary. She told the assembly in Trinidad that she had battled injustice for too long. “For eight years I have struggled under hardship in an administration that was not for, in my opinion, putting people – working class people – first. That did not put education first,” Solis said.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › California maid company fined for ignoring 2007 ruling

According to the GAO report, the WHD “frequently responded inadequately to complaints, leaving low wage workers vulnerable to wage theft.” The GAO came to this conclusion after conducting a broad undercover investigation in which it filed 10 fictitious worker complaints in WHD district offices throughout the country.

“The undercover tests revealed sluggish response times, a poor complaint intake process, and failed conciliation attempts, among other problems,” the report states. The GAO also documented one case in which a WHD employee lied about investigating a claim when actually no work at all was done to investigate the fictitious claim.

One of the investigations was filed by a fictitious secretary in Virginia who complained that she was not being paid the minimum wage. The GAO’s fictitious employer did not refute the receptionist’s claim, but refused to pay the back wages owed anyway. The WHD investigator “accepted the refusal without question and informed the fictitious employee of his right to file a lawsuit.” The fictitious employee then asked why the WHD couldn’t be of more help and was told to contact his Congressman.

Another fictitious claim stated that children were using heavy machinery at a California meat packing facility. But 4 months later, the WHD still had not taken any action. In fact, the complaint was never recorded in the WHD’s database, even though the WDH claims that child labor complaints are its top priority.

It’s bad enough the workers in labor intensive jobs often find themselves preyed upon by unscrupulous employers. Add to that a bad economy in which some employers take desperate (and illegal) cost-cutting measures and top it off with an ineffective government bureaucracy, and you have to wonder:  why does the Fair Labor Standards Act exist if our Department of Labor won’t take even the smallest measures to enforce it? What recourse do workers have?

At the end of its undercover study, the GAO was still waiting for the WHD to begin investigating 3 of the fictitious claims, all of which had been delayed by months. During the course of the study, the GAO also exposed many real cases involving hundreds of workers whose employers the WHD never investigated.

According to the report, the “GAO found cases where it took over a year for WHD to respond to a complaint, cases closed based on unverified information provided by the employer, and cases dropped when the employer did not return phone calls.”

“GAO’s overall assessment of the WHD complaint intake, conciliation, and investigation processes found an ineffective system that discourages wage theft complaints,” the report states.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Department of Labor fails to uphold and enforce FLSA regulations

Smith’s restaurant in Bolivar will pay more than $36,000 in fines and back wages stemming from its violations of the FLSA’s overtime, minimum wage, and child labor regulations. $34,625 of the money recovered by the Wage and Hour Division will compensate 54 employees for back wages.

Investigators found the restaurant had violated minimum wage laws by skimming money from the servers’ hourly pay to compensate bus staff. The restaurant also paid regular wages to ten hourly employees for time worked over 40 hours per workweek, which constitutes a violation of the FLSA standards for overtime pay.

The restaurant had to pay nearly $1,500 in penalties to the Labor Department for allowing employees under 18 years old to work more than three hours on school days and past 9 p.m. during the summer.  The FLSA prohibits workers under age 18 from working more than three hours on school days (18 hours per week) and eight hours on days with no school (40 hours per week). Minors may not work work later than 7 p.m. when school is in session or 9 p.m. during summer break.

The restaurant has cooperated fully with the Department of Labor, reports the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.

“The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division is committed to protecting the rights of workers by ensuring that they receive the wages to which they are entitled,” James Koren, Kansas City district director of the Wage and Hour Division, told the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.

“Also, the department’s child labor provisions serve to strike a balance among providing invaluable work experience to our nation’s youth, safety and educational responsibilities,” he said.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Missouri restaurant pays back wages and penalties for FLSA violations

Bobo is the founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, an organization that appeals to the shared convictions of all religions in protecting the rights of the everyday worker, especially low-wage workers.

Bobo alleges that in meat processing plants, retail businesses, restaurants, garment assembly plants, the construction industry, and several other occupational settings, “workers are having their legal wages stolen by unscrupulous employers trying to gain an advantage over their law abiding competitors.”

In 1996, Bobo established the national Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) organization, having spent many years previously advocating for worker justice. Since its founding, IWJ has grown into a network of more than 50 religious labor groups and 20 worker centers. In 2007, the organization’s worker centers scattered throughout the country recovered $1,249,052 in wages for workers.

The organization also funds and operates numerous programs, including one that pairs seminary and rabbinical students with labor unions. “Too often the religious community and the labor communities have worked in isolation from one another,” the IWJ website states.

Raising awareness of wage theft is a formidable task, but it can be tackled effectively with the power of faith-based conscience. Bringing attention to the problem of unethical corporate practices is like shining a spotlight in a dark basement where creepy things lurk.

Bobo’s new book, Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It, is another way that the activist is shining light on the “crime wave no one talks about.” According to Bobo, between two and three million people are paid less than minimum wage for their work every year. Misclassifying employees as independent contractors is also a trick many companies use to avoid payroll taxes and overtime pay.

IWJ’s website provides a wealth of information and resources pertaining to workers’ rights and the issue of wage theft, including an expanded definition of the term and answers to many questions about the problem. Some interesting facts surrounding wage theft, borrowed from IWJ’s website, are listed below.

• Wage theft covers a variety of infractions that occur when workers do not receive their legally or contractually promised wages.
• Wage theft consists of employer violations of the Davis-Bacon Act, Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Housing and Urban Development Act Section 3.
• Wage theft is endemic across the labor market, and especially in the low wage labor market.
• Agriculture, poultry processing, janitorial services, restaurant work, garment manufacturing, long term care, home health care and retail are the industries with the most reported cases of wage theft.
• The number of Department of Labor (DOL) wage and hour investigators dropped by 14 percent between 1975 and 2004.
• The number of compliance actions declined 36 percent in that time.
• The workforce covered by the FLSA grew 55 percent in that time.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Woman crusades against epidemic of wage theft

The Company plans to continue to defend its position in this case, and, at this time, does not believe an adverse resolution will have a material effect on the Company’s financial statements taken as a whole. The Company presently does not know whether the plaintiffs intend to challenge the ruling.

About Dollar General

Dollar General is a Fortune 500(R) discount retailer with 8,164 neighborhood stores as of July 28, 2006. Dollar General stores offer convenience and value to customers by offering consumable basic items that are frequently used and replenished, such as food, snacks, health and beauty aids and cleaning supplies, as well as a selection of basic apparel, house wares and seasonal items at everyday low prices. The Company store support center is located in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Dollar General’s Web site can be reached at www.dollargeneral.com.

SOURCE: Court decertifies class in Dollar General wage and hour lawsuit, by Business Wire

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Court decertifies class in Dollar General wage and hour lawsuit