United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2008-07-15 monographic deposited born digital 18 p. GA 1.13:GAO-08-973T https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T P0b002ee180383e55 f:d08973t DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T GAO-08-973T Employee grievances Employee rights Employees Investigations by federal agencies Labor statistics Litigation Minimum wage rates Overtime compensation Overtime pay claims Pay Payroll records Personnel records Unfair labor practices Unpaid wages Wage surveys Timeliness Waste, fraud, and abuse Testimony A82863 Over 100 million workers are protected through the Department of Labor's (Labor) enforcement of labor laws. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) enforces provisions that ensure workers are paid at least the federal minimum wage and for overtime. The Act applies to businesses engaged in interstate commerce or ones with annual sales over $500,000. Conducting investigations based on worker complaints is WHD's priority. According to Labor, investigations range from comprehensive investigations to conciliations, which consist primarily of phone calls to a complainant's employer. This testimony highlights findings from GAO's ongoing investigation of WHD's process for investigating and resolving wage and hour complaints. Specifically this testimony will report on cases GAO has identified from ongoing work that show inadequate WHD investigations of complaints. To develop the case studies, GAO obtained and analyzed data from WHD for over 70,000 closed case files from fiscal years 2005 to 2007. GAO then reviewed WHD documents and obtained information from publicly available sources in order to determine facts about the employers that had complaints filed against them. The results of these cases cannot be projected to all 70,000 WHD cases. GAO plans to continue its work in this area to determine if identified case studies are indicators of more systematic problems in WHD. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T.pdf GAO-08-973T https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-08-973T Testimony GAO-08-973T; Department of Labor: Case Studies from Ongoing Work Show Examples in Which Wage and Hour Division Did Not Adequately Pursue Labor Violations; Employee grievances Employee rights Employees Investigations by federal agencies Labor statistics Litigation Minimum wage rates Overtime compensation Overtime pay claims Pay Payroll records Personnel records Unfair labor practices Unpaid wages Wage surveys Timeliness Waste, fraud, and abuse