Wage and hour lawsuits increasing
If it seems like lately there have been more law suits than usual filed against employers, it's because it's true. According to law firm Seyfarth Shaw, there were 10 percent more wage and hour lawsuits this year compared to last year. It is possible that companies are increasingly miscalculating employee time and attendance, or perhaps the U.S. Department of Labor is taking greater measures to uncover violations.
Some advocates for workers' rights believe that the rise in lawsuits actually comes from the DOL's inability to deal with complaints.
"The employers were emboldened because there wasn't enforcement, so the violations increased," Cathy Ruckelshaus, the legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project, told the Huffington Post. "There was a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of violations."
According to Seyfarth Shaw, 7,764 wage and hour lawsuits were filed between April 1, 2012, and March 31, 2013. This is 700 more than occurred during the same period the previous year. These numbers suggest that complying with the Fair Labor Standard Act's (FLSA's) wage and hour regulations should be high up on employers' priorities, because these type of violations pose a major lawsuit threat.
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