Labor Dept. App Helps Workers Track Wages, Hours
 |
Want to make sure you’re getting paid what you’re due? Now there’s an app for that. The U.S. Labor Department announced last week its first application for smartphones: a time sheet to help employees independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed.
Available in English and Spanish, workers can use the application to conveniently track regular work hours, break time and any overtime hours for one or more employers. Contact information and materials about wage laws are easily accessible through links to the webpages of the department’s Wage and Hour Division.
Rather than relying on their employers’ records, workers now can keep their own. Workers also will be able to add comments on any information related to work hours and see a summary of work hours for the day, week or month and e-mail a summary of hours and pay as an attachment. This information could prove invaluable during a Wage and Hour Division investigation when an employer has failed to maintain accurate employment records.
Report: Wage and Hour Law Enforcement Is Lax
While 45 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wage laws, that does not mean they are followed or enforced, according to a new report released by the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia University Law School.
The first-of-its-kind nationwide study found that enforcement is lax in many states, in part because of a lack of funds and also an unwillingness to use every available weapon to ensure compliance.
Obama Labor Dept. Stresses Law Enforcement—Big Change from Bush Era
The U.S. Labor Department is committed to stronger enforcement of labor laws and is determined to reverse a “culture of noncompliance’’ that developed during the anti-worker years of the Bush administration, Labor Solicitor Patricia Smith said.
Smith told a labor law conference at Suffolk University Law School last week that the Bush administration emphasized voluntary compliance by employers while investigations and enforcement of labor laws declined, according to the Daily Labor Report (subscription required).
They relied on trickle-down enforcement; it doesn’t work any better than trickle-down economics. [As a result of reduced enforcement] many employers developed a “catch-me-if-you-can” attitude. Our challenge is to change that attitude.
Labor Department Budget Strengthens Worker Protection Enforcement
The Obama administration today unveiled its plan to fulfill a promise to make America’s workplaces safer and protect workers’ rights.
During the Labor Department’s first-ever online discussion about its budget, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the department’s fiscal year 2010 budget, which totals $104.5 billion, will:
- Promote a “green” economic recovery;
- Begin to restore worker protection programs;
- Ensure that programs are transparent and accountable; and
- Promote diversity and stakeholder inclusion in every aspect of the department’s work.
As an example of the importance of worker protections, the budget allocates $1.7 billion in discretionary funds for worker-protection programs, a 10 percent increase from the prior year’s budget.
Wage and Hour Division Gets New Leader
Earlier this week, President Obama announced he intends to nominate Lorelei Boylan as administrator for the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and Thomasina Rogers as chairwoman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
The practices of the Wage and Hour Division under the Bush administration have come under fire recently. Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying the division, which is supposed to enforce minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws, had not enforced the laws, leaving low-income workers vulnerable to wage theft.
