U.S. Steps Up Wage-Law Enforcement

[Pirate Smile]

Source: The Wall Street Journal

By MELANIE TROTTMAN

WASHINGTON -- The Labor Department is hiring 150 more investigators to enforce wage and child labor laws in the wake of a government probe that found the agency failed to effectively fight wage theft over the last few years.
The stepped-up hiring is a signal to employers that attempts to dodge full payment of wages will be met with new focus, and the latest sign of the increasingly vigorous approach to workplace regulation President Barack Obama vowed his Labor Department would take.

In addition to the 150 investigators being hired to help enforce wage and child labor laws, the department is hiring another 100 investigators in Wage and Hour as part of the government stimulus plan to ensure contractors on stimulus projects are in compliance with applicable laws. The total of 250 will increase staff in the division by more than a third.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in early March assured the nation's workers that her arrival at the agency means "there's a new sheriff in town." Last week she targeted worker safety by speeding up the process of setting rules to protect against occupational exposure to a harmful chemical sometimes used in making microwave-popcorn flavoring.

On Wednesday she said she takes the results of the government probe into wage theft "very seriously" and is committed to ensuring all workers are paid at least the minimum wage and proper overtime. The agency had already begun hiring additional investigators before the final results of the probe were issued, part of what it says is an expanded 2009 budget for the Wage and Hour Division. Ms. Solis said in a statement that adding more staff would help "reinvigorate" the agency's work following a loss of experienced personnel over several years.



Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123801442734541143.html

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:woohoo:

[elleng]

1. See how it feels to have a government that really DOES its jobs!!!

.

[griz2008]

2. Good Deal and

Now all we need is the Employee Free Choice Act to be resurrected.

Fuck you, Arlen Spector, just FUCK YOU.

people need to stop fearing unionization, because the sort of Textbook examples of abuses mostly happened years ago in Major Cities with mobsters in 'em.

We don't have mobsters where I am, so why does everybody hate the union so much when THEY'VE NEVER HAD ONE, and think that their employer gives a flying fuck (at a rolling donut) about them.

[DCKit]

3. Congress is the definition of an all-powerful, self-serving union... comprised, entirely, of....

MANAGEMENT.

They don't hate unions, they hate the idea of unions for US.

[nichomachus]

7. Why people hate unions

Right after WW2, when the fascists began their second assault on the US, Congress passed Taft-Hartley. One of the provisions of T-H was that unions could exist, but they had to purge themselves of anyone with any leftist leanings or former connections. We were also in the midst of the Red Scare. So, the unions did get rid of anyone who had exhibited any Communist or Socialist leanings -- or had even ever attended a Socialist meeting.

This meant that the unions tossed out a lot of the people who were the leaders and organizers. The power vacuum was filled with opportunists, crooks, and well-meaning people who weren't very good at what they did. This allowed the fascists and the growing corporate media to devote a lot of time to "proving" that all unions were corrupt and all union leaders were corrupt.

By that time, unions had made working conditions in the US a lot better. So, a lot of workers -- fat, dumb, and happy and not knowing how they got that way -- turned on the unions. By the time Reagan came along, they were ready to throw the unions and their fellow workers overboard.

The propaganda campaign worked and today many Americans still have bad feelings about unions and think that they don't need them.

[fasttense]

4. How do I apply for one of those jobs?

[Earth Bound Misfit]

5. "there's a new sheriff in town."

INDEED.

:applause: :patriot: :fistbump: :kick:

What a concept. A Secretary of Labor, and Dept of Labor that does what they're supposed to do:
PROTECT workers & ENFORCE the LAW.:thumbsup:

ETA: Recommend

[nichomachus]

6. This is what the department used to do before Reagan.

The whole idea is that if you force employers to obey the laws, you will actually create jobs. If they have to pay overtime for people who work overtime, they will hire another person. However, when they can get 12 hours works for eight hours pay, they can hire fewer people.

A lot of white-collar idiots and techies haven't figured this out yet. They've been led to think they are "special" and so they work 80 hour weeks -- sometimes more -- without any additional compensation.

A friend of mine was just hired for a three-day a week part-time job. He gets paid for 24 hours. However, the work load they've dumped on him takes more than 40 hours. A union wouldn't let that happen.