The federal Department of Labor and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are becoming more aggressive in actions against employers running afoul of Wage and Hour Laws. While the laws have provisions for imprisonment for violators until recently that was a rarely employed avenue of enforcement. Things appear to be changing. This article cites two cases where the feds have sent employers to prison for violations.
While the details of those cases suggest that perhaps the employers got what was coming to them, there is also a disconcerting case in New York state of a restaurant owner who finds herself facing 1 year in the slammer for her first offense.
In the monkey-see monkey-do world of politics it’s not too much to wonder if one day soon a California employer will find himself in the crosshairs of an ambitious attorney general.
BOLT has made wage and hour concerns a top priority recently and these cases appear to bear out the wisdom of being absolutely certain there is no grounds for wage and hour complaints.