Employer: "Well, you know, like I said, all our contracts have dried up, we really don't have anything coming in, so . . ."
Division staff: "Okay, so you're not in a position where you can pay him?"
At that, the staffer ended the conversation and the investigation with a reminder to the employer that the complaining employee would be advised of his rights to sue.
In one cited instance, an undercover agent, posing as a dishwasher, complained four times about not being paid for 19 weeks of overtime he was due, by Florida law. It took four months for the Florida office to even call the worker back, and when it did, it advised the fellow no further notice of the labor law violations, or an investigation of them, would proceed for an additional eight to ten months. Another example is of a restaurant that had misappropriated workers tips and had forced them to work "off the clock." Although a total of $230,000 was owed the workers, the Division tarried for 22 months to even look into the matter, then dropped the issue entirely once the employer agreed to pay the back wages, but not the tips the employer had illegally comingled with its own receipts.
In two instances, the Division recorded in the files that employers had paid the back wages owed, regardless that the employers had done no such thing.
GAO stated that the Division frequently dismissed the cases when employers failed to return calls. On many occasions, the low-wage workers were advised to file lawsuits against their employers, rather than seek assistance from a cabinet department whose sole purpose it is to monitor employer abuse, on behalf of those very swame American workers.
The department declined to explore a Modesto meatpacker for hiring underage children, and of having those children operate hazardous machinery - during school hours!
Because the link to the relatively brief report has been provided above, I'm including just one additional example. A Montana boarding school owed employees in excess of $200,000 for overtime they had worked. As the 2-year statute of limitations approached, the school hardened its stand to not pay the employees anything. The school's posture changed only slightly after the Division offered to drop the entire thing if the school would settle for $1,000.
Bear in mind that the nine-month report predates the Obama presidency, it's part of Bush Administration history. But the tawdry theft of worker wages didn't begin with Bush 43, it actually gained its most recent genesis with Ronald Reagan. While we can hope that President Obama's new Labor Department secretary, Hilda Solis, reinvigorates in her department an energetic pro-active attitude, 30 years of an entrenched culture that is precisely the opposite may be an arduous and prolonged task. Employees, and most particularly low-wage employees, have long been schooled to abide quietly an employer's harassment and to follow obediantly intimidating directions, even when the employee knows, or strongly suspects, the managment has crossed the legal line. To complain is to face firing; something a low-wage worker can ill afford.
It is a naivety that travels immediately the route to manifest stupidity for anyone to suggest that management, of itself and unencumbered of the least legal peril, will concern itself with worker welfare. Or is business somehow distinct from the rest of humankind and has the species evolved to such a magnanimous and well intentioned elevation that we can dispense with police departments and the criminal justice system?
Ridiculous! Wages have been torpedoed to abysmal negative growth, working conditions have deteriorated steadily, and the American workforce outnumbers demand to the point all leverage lies with the employer. A strong union counterbalance is today an absolute necessity.
Disclosure: Now retired, from 1978 through January, 2008, I was a business-for-self, sole proprietor entrepreneur. The last time I actually labored under the protection of a union was from July, 1967 to August, 1968.
