The 2003 fiscal year was a record-breaking year for the Employment Standards Administration’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), the investigative and enforcement arm of the Department of Labor (DOL). Of the 39,425 cases concluded by the WHD, 32,591 (approximately 83 percent) of the cases involved the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (the remaining cases involved the Family and Medical Leave Act, child labor violations, and other statutory violations). Moreover, of the 32,591 FLSA cases concluded by the WHD, 22,641 of the cases involved monetary violations. In total, 314,660 affected workers (up 30.2 percent from FY 2002) received $182,119,413 in back wages (up 27.4 percent from FY 2002).
Based on the above statistics and the lure of “free money,” it is little wonder why complaints to the DOL and lawsuits have skyrocketed in recent years. By filing a complaint with the DOL or in court, the employee has little, if anything, to lose. Once a complaint is filed, the employee is protected by a variety of antiretaliation statutes. In addition, an employee will usually be able to recover double his or her money through the FLSA’s liquidated damages provision. Finally, the employee’s attorney has much to gain and little to lose by filing a civil lawsuit. The attorney need only prove a single violation in the two-year statutory period (or three years for a willful violation) in order to receive attorney’s fees for prosecuting the action.
This article was provided by Brian Walter, LIEBERT CASSIDY WHITMORE, Los Angeles, CA, Phone: 310-981-2000, E-mail: bwalter@LCWlegal.com.
To ensure you don’t become part of DOL’s compliance statistics for 2004, attend Council’s FLSA and State Wage and Hour Update 2004, which will provide you with best practices for complying with the FLSA and your state’s wage and hour laws and the most recent developments on the new white-collar exemptions. Click on the link above for more information, including a detailed agenda, dates, and locations.