Report Criticizes Dept. of Labor's Performance
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) produced two reports evaluating -- criticizing, really -- the work of DOL's Wage and Hour Division. Steven Greenhouse's article in the New York Times outlines some of the key findings of the report. For instance, the reports conclude that the Wage and Hour Division was not focusing on the industries that are most likely to have violations, took 37% fewer enforcement actions in 2007 (29,584) than ten years prior (46,758), and was too willing to simply drop investigations
Greenhouse notes that one of the reports, which looked at DOL data and closely examined 15 cases, concluded that "the Wage and Hour Division had inappropriately rejected complaints based on incorrect information provided by employers, failed to make adequate efforts to locate employers and did not thoroughly investigate and resolve complaints." DOL would also call off an investigation because an employer did not call them back or claimed to be in tough financial straits. (The company in the latter example is still in business).
The article gives a very good -- albeit depressing -- summary of the reports. Please read it. And please pray that things get better under the next President.
Nice supplement to this post from EPI:
"Bush Budget Spends 100 Times More to Regulate Unions."
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20080604
July 18, 2008 4:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great link, thanks for that.
July 18, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink