Are You Being Under-Paid Or Having Your Salary Docked In Violation Of The Fair Labor Standards Act?
Employees who are paid by the hour, particularly low wage workers, are often cheated by their employers. Hourly workers are routinely denied proper overtime pay and are often paid less than minimum wage according to a newly released study based on a survey of workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
In surveying 4,387 workers in various industries, including child care, retail and apparel manufacturing, the researchers found that the typical worker had lost $51 the previous week through wage violations, which translates into an average loss of 15% in pay. According to the New York Times, the study -- the most comprehensive examination of wage-law violations in a decade -- also found that 68% of the workers interviewed had experienced at least one pay-related violation in the previous week. Moreover, the study found that 26% of the workers surveyed had been paid less than the minimum wage, that 1 in 7 had worked off the clock, and that 76% of those that worked overtime were not paid their proper overtime compensation.
Annette Bernhardt, an author of the study and policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project, stated that, “When unscrupulous employers break the law, they’re robbing families of money to put food on the table, they’re robbing communities of spending power and they’re robbing governments of vital tax revenues.”
This study comes only ten months after a federal judge in Manhattan awarded $4.6 million in back pay and damages to 36 deliverymen at two Saigon Grill restaurants for violating state and federal minimum wage and overtime laws. In those cases, the Chinese immigrants were required to work 11 to 13 hours a day, six days a week, without proper compensation for overtime. Even more egregious, the company would take illegal deductions out of their salaries for various “infractions,” such as allowing the restaurant door to slam or for failing to log a delivery.
If you believe that you’ve been underpaid by your employer, or that your pay was improperly “docked” by your employer based upon alleged infractions of company policy, please contact us to discuss your legal options.