Dramatic Rise in Wage & Hour Lawsuits Indicate Employees Are Fed Up

Lawsuits over unpaid overtime and wages continue to grow as America’s economy rebounds.

Over the last 20 years, wage and hour lawsuits have risen by a staggering 432 percent. Legal experts state that the number of employees suing their employers over unpaid overtime or unfair wages is continuing to rise, and does not look to be slowing any time soon.

This troubling legal trend was revealed by the Federal Judicial Center. In just the last year, the number of wage and hour lawsuits had jumped another 10 percent. Many employment law firms state that the spike of these lawsuits could be one of the side effects of the economy now recovering, leading to many employees to become sensitive to the amount of their compensation. Additionally, it is theorized that social media was used to spread the issue of wage and hour inconsistencies between hourly employees.

While legal experts see this as a troubling issue, advocates of the working class see the statistic in a completely different light. Advocates believe that the increased number of these wage and hour lawsuits over the past 20 years has shown that workers have had to rely on legal intervention to receive proper compensation for their hours worked.

According to Cathy Ruckelshaus, the legal co-director for the National Employment Law Project, employers often felt that they could get away with improper compensation because there had been previously no enforcement. Therefore, hourly employees often were not fully compensated for their hours worked because their employers had not faced any type of legal consequence. Ruckelshaus is hopeful that the new awareness will encourage proper wage and hour compensation.

Wage and hour lawsuits almost always involve an employee arguing against their employer regarding how much money is owed to them. According to various legal experts, the dispute will often fall into one of the three categories of wage and hour complaints:

• Hourly employees claiming they were not paid for all the hours worked
• Salaried workers claiming that the company owes them overtime
• Employees working for a tipped minimum wage, claiming they did not make enough in tips to match required minimum wage

The economy influenced a majority of employer behaviors, especially in relation to workers’ pay. Employees were often so concerned about keeping their jobs that they did not speak about their wage inconsistency.  According to The Wall Street Journal, S&P 500 companies made an average of $420,000 per employee in 2011 from this behavior.

Now that the economy is recovering, employees may finally be feeling secure enough to demand proper wages and even resort to legal action if their demands are not immediately met. Ruckelshaus is optimistic about this outcome because she believes that employers will be more willing to comply with federal regulations and state law.

Wage and Hour Issues Overview

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires most wage and hour employees to be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked, plus overtime pay at one-and-one-half times the regular rate of pay. This includes all non-discretionary bonuses for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Many states have their own laws governing wage and hour requirements, but still must pay a certain amount to meet federal requirements.

Based on wage and hour lawsuits, legal experts have managed to collect a list of strategies that employers use to violate the FLSA. These strategies include but are not limited to:

• Forcing employees to work “off-the-clock”
• Refusing to pay overtime because employee did not obtain permission to work more hours
• Failing to pay workers for breaks lasting between five and 20 minutes, meetings, training sessions, take-home work, and some on-call time
• Misclassifying employees as “exempt”

File an Unpaid Wage and Hour Lawsuit Today

If you were forced to work off the clock or without overtime pay compensation within the past two to three years, you have rights – and you don’t have to take on the company alone. Visit the Wage & Hour, Overtime Pay Class Action Lawsuit Investigation for more information.