Wage and Hour Division Beefs Up Staff
Posted on 27-Mar-09 by The Timekeeper
OK, for those of you holdouts who are still using handwritten time sheets or “guesstimates” of employee time worked or have otherwise been putting off installing some kind of more reliable and accurate time and attendance solution… ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the US DOL is hiring 150 new investigators in the Wage and Hour division to better enforce wage and child labor laws, and another 100 investigators to make sure that businesses receiving economic stimulus contracts or payments are paying their employees according to the law.
This is something of a change from the past few years, when the Wage and Hour division was chronically understaffed. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) has roundly criticized the DOL for lax enforcement and poor customer service, but new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has been widely quoted as saying, “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
So, now, no more excuses. I don’t want to find myself at some point in the future writing about you and how much you had to pay out in back wages and penalties because of inadequate record-keeping. (And I’m sure you’d rather avoid that, as well.)
Traditional employee punch clock, time and attendance software, a complete system with badge or biometric terminals, a web-based service, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if your employees clock in and out by punching a time card, swiping a badge, scanning their fingerprint, logging in to a website, calling in from their cell phone or whatever. Just make sure you’re tracking their time accurately, and you’re paying them according to the law.
Big Brother may not be watching your every step (yet), but you can bet Sheriff Solis and her deputies are strapping on their six-shooters and forming a posse to bring more scofflaws to justice. So get your house in order, now, before it’s too late.
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