The United States Department of Labor is responsible for enforcing federal labor laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs employ minimum wages and overtime. A recent report by government auditors found that that DOL may mishandle as many as 90 percent (90 percent?!) of the cases brought to it for enforcement.
This is not a reflection on DOL investigator competence, rather it is an issue of resources. When DOL is not properly funded, it cannot hire a sufficient number of investigators, which leads to employee complaints dropping through the cracks. Fortunately, both state and federal wage and hour laws are designed to supplement government enforcement through the use of “private attorneys general.” This term refers to private lawyers who are encouraged to take and prosecute employee cases. Because the wage and hour laws provide that employers may have to pay the fees of private lawyers who bring and win employee cases, the laws create a financial incentive for private lawyers to vindicate employee rights thereby supplementing the efforts of DOL.
Read the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25wage.html
