More Audits by US Department of Labor Expected

US Department of Labor seems to be in a bad mood these days. Since past few years, we have seen a lot of movement in the department. Businesses, mid and large, are being audited continuously and quite stringently. And this was certainly not very surprising as they had made their goals clear while deciding their agenda of DOL 2011 Strategic Plan:

• Having a strong , competitive, and healthy workforce
• Working environment for workers must be healthy and safe
• Strengthening the economic workforce and thus protecting the economy

This means they developed a plan to provide safe and secure working conditions for an employee. Besides, every working individual must get equal working opportunity, enjoy all legal rights, receive wages according to industry standards, and have a safe place to work in.

The US Department of Labor is not a small organization. It has over 27 big divisions with their independent rights and responsibilities. Recently, they have hire additional 300 officials to ensure the above mentioned are properly given to an employee. So, we can expect more audits in the coming months.

These audits are not random. They visit a company for audit when an employee files complaint against his employer, regardless of the existing employment status of the individual filing complaint. They don’t generally audit the entire industry. It’s only against those who they are skeptical about. Some of the industries they commonly audit are garment industry, hotel industry, agriculture, health care, day care, janitorial services, etc. Compensation in these industries is quite low, and employers often violate certain rules.

Some of the very frequent acts and regulations violated by employers are:

• Violation of sections under Child Labor Act
• Non compliance of Minimum Wages Act
• Miscategorizing a laborer as exempt
• Nor providing required retirement benefits
• Not paying over time
• Deduction in wages due to unexplained reasons
• Violating Family & Medical Leave Act
• Not paying other compensation like bonus, overtime, incentives, commission, etc

If a US Department of Labor official visits your company for an audit, he will check every aspect of your company related to employment, regardless of why the complaint was filed. Payment history is first thing he might ask for. He would check if all the employees of your company would are paid on time, and ask for relevant evidence.

If you don’t have all the records in place or if some employee has filed a lawsuit against you, make sure you employ an attorney and get things straight as quickly as possible. It would certainly be expensive. But if you are found guilty in the audit, you would have to pay much more.