Under Bush, Labor Dept. Ignored, Mishandled Complaints of Workplace Violations

In findings that are appalling but not really a surprise, the government's watchdog agency reported that the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division under former President Bush regularly mishandled workers' complaints and failed to investigate and enforce the law on serious employer violations of minimum wage, overtime, and other labor laws.

The report by the General Accountability Office said the agency showed clear disregard for workers who sought help for workplace violations, telling them to file lawsuits or find other jobs rather than seek justice from their employers through government action.

In testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee following release of the report, the GAO said the division's entire complaint procedure, from taking worker statements to investigation and complaint resolution, were ineffective and discouraged workers from pursuing their serious job violations.

"This investigation clearly shows that the Department of Labor left thousands of victims of wage theft who sought federal government assistance with nowhere to turn," said Greg Kutz, GAO managing director of forensic audits and special investigations. Kutz told the committee that employees at the division were routinely told to only keep track of successfully resolved complaints to make it appear that the agency was doing its job.

"We owe it to all hard working Americans to ensure that we correct the incompetence of the Bush Administration and ensure families are not cheated out of their wages by unscrupulous employers," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the committee's chairman. "This was a massive failure. Former Secretary Chao was absent without leave," he said.

The Bush administration's anti-union Labor Secretary, Elaine Chao, cut staffing and nearly ignored the agency's responsibility to protect workers' rights or investigate employer violations.

The GAO investigation posed agents as workers and employers to measure how the Wage and Hour Division performed when faced with 10 serious employer violations. It found that 9 of the 10 cases were mishandled. One involved underage children working with saws and meat grinders during school hours, illegal under child labor laws. The case was never investigated or even logged in. Another case involved workers at a boarding school who were illegally denied more than $200,000 in overtime pay. The agency declined to pursue the complaint after the employer agreed to pay only workers' back wages, only $1,000, just before the statute of limitations was to run out.

Of the 10 cases, five were not recorded by the Wage and Hour Division and three were never investigated. In the two remaining cases, the agency falsely recorded that employers had repaid employees' wages; employers had not paid any owed back wages.  

The Wage and Hour Division frequently dropped complaints based on unverified information provided by employers.

The GAO also sampled several dozen actual causes from division records; as a result, GAO identified 20 cases involving 1,160 workers that were mishandled.

The Labor Department's new Secretary, Hilda Solis, condemned the report's findings and said that she was committed to fully protecting workers' rights. Solis said she has added 150 new investigators to the division's field offices and would be adding another 100 investigators in the near future.

Click here to listen to a news report of the story including audio recordings of Wage and Hour employees trying to discourage workers from filing complaints.