News Story (Virginia)
Michael Pope
WVTF (local NPR, VA)
December 5, 2019
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
Tags: Wage Theft
Organizations mentioned/involved: Legal Aid Justice Center (Virginia)
DETAILS
Of the 4,000 wage complaints filed with the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry over the last four years, about half weren’t even investigated. That’s according to a new report from the Legal Aid Justice Center.
Nicholas Marritz is an attorney with the center who helped put together the report, and he says the agency — not Virginia law — is the problem. “It has some internal policies not based on any statute or regulation. These are just things that the agency made up that they basically use to dismiss lots and lots of claims on what we think are some very dubious bases.” Like dismissing a wage claim for workers who have a written employment contract. Or workers who worked more than 40 hours a week. Or workers who worked in other states for Virginia-based companies.
Kim Bobo at the Virginia Interfaith Public Policy Center says the department needs more money so it can hire more investigators. “That would make a huge difference and would then enable the agency to make the kind of internal changes that are recommended in the report,” Bobo says.