We visit the doctor once a year, the optometrist once a year, and our dentists at least twice a year. Why? We attend these appointments, not because they’re necessarily fun, but because they’re vital for maintaining health and wellness. They provide assurance that our health is good, and if things are not so, they provide opportunity to correct course.
All too often, however, our businesses don’t undergo similar compliance checkups, especially in the wage and hour field where checkups are vitally needed.
Recent media stories about the DOL investigations into LaBelle Winery and Dos Amigos are uncomfortably prescient. Going through a NHDOL or USDOL investigation is not enjoyable, but it is worse when hefty penalties and back wages lurk on the other side. Federal lawsuits filed by employees over the failure to pay wages are often worse given the adversarial nature of litigation and the threat of liquidated damages and the payment of mandatory attorneys’ fees. Class actions are in a class of their own.
Many wage and hour violations can be identified and cured with periodic compliance monitoring. Trust when I say that correcting a violation in advance is far healthier for your bottom line than defending an unlawful practice in court. Wage cases often are not a question of win or lose but of how much.
Not convinced yet? The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) imposes liquidated damages for wage and hour violations. Liquidated damages are a penalty equal to the back wages owed to...
Amid a swirl of public speculation and growing concern, the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has firmly rejected claims that it spent a staggering GH9 million on a turkey berry production project, de...