WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor and its partners from the Interagency Task Force to Combat Child Labor Exploitation today announced its recent actions to hold companies accountable for violating federal child labor laws.

FAIRFAX, VA – A federal court has directed a Fairfax home care agency and its owners to pay more than $1.6 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 202 home health aides in a consent judgment obtained by the U.S. Department of Labor.

CHANDLER, MN – A federal court in Minnesota has entered a consent judgment that requires a national food manufacturing company to comply with the federal child labor laws at all of its production facilities and warehouses nationwide, and to take significant steps to comply with these laws in the future.

ATLANTA – In what may be the largest misclassification case in its history, the U.S. Department of Labor has asked a federal court to force a Florida-based customer service provider for major national brands, including Barnes & Noble, Comcast, Disney and Walgreens, to pay back wages and liquidated damages to more than 22,000 workers after investigators found the employer misclassified employees as independent contractors and denied them their legally required minimum wage and overtime pay.

INDIANOLA, MS – In the summer of 2022, U.S. Department of Labor leaders heard from a group of Black farmworkers in the Mississippi Delta about allegations of abuse and exploitation of Black farmworkers in some of the nation’s poorest counties, including egregious violations of their workplace rights.

HACKENSACK, NJ – Three northern New Jersey supermarkets have paid more than $1.8 million in back wages and damages after federal investigators found the employers deliberately failed to pay required overtime rates to 226 employees who worked overtime at stores in Hackensack, Oakland and Waldwick.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that its Wage and Hour Division will offer online seminars for contracting agencies, contractors, unions, workers and other stakeholders on the requirements for paying prevailing wages on federally funded construction and service contracts.

PHILADELPHIA – A federal court has ordered a Philadelphia home care agency and its owner to pay more than $7 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 1,230 current and former employees after two years of litigation affirmed the U.S. Department of Labor’s finding that the employers willfully failed to pay overtime wages, in most cases by not including employees’ time for work-related travel when calculating wages.

PHILADELPHIA – A federal court jury has awarded back wages of more than $22 million to the U.S. Department of Labor for more than 7,500 employees working for East Penn Manufacturing Company Inc. — one of the world’s largest battery manufacturers — after the department proved that the company failed to pay them overtime pay.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services today announced a Memorandum of Agreement to advance ongoing efforts to address child labor exploitation. 

LOS ANGELES – A survey of Southern California garment-sewing contractors and manufacturers by the U.S. Department of Labor has found workers making garments sold by many of the nation’s leading fashion retailers often continue to be victims of wage theft and employers’ illegal pay practices.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has requested that a federal court in Vermont allow the department to intervene and seek the court’s dismissal of a counterclaim that Bimbo Bakeries USA Inc. – one of the nation’s largest baking companies – has asserted against its own workers who are seeking the overtime compensation that they are allegedly owed.

NEW YORK – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit asking a federal court to stop a Brooklyn, New York, healthcare staffing provider from allegedly making employees sign contracts that would force them to work for the company for three years or repay rightfully earned wages.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced it will publish a final rule to amend how the Adverse Effect Wage Rates for the H-2A program are set to improve the rates’ consistency and accuracy based on the work actually performed by these workers and to better prevent H-2A workers’ employment negatively affecting the wages of U.S. workers in similar positions.

WASHINGTON – Since 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor has seen a 69 percent increase in children being employed illegally by companies. In the last fiscal year, the department found 835 companies it investigated had employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws. The maximum civil monetary penalty under current law for a child labor violation is $15,138 per child. That’s not high enough to be a deterrent for major profitable companies.

WASHINGTON – As part of its year-long commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the U.S. Department of Labor today hosted an online roundtable discussion and launched a new web page to inform workers about federal regulations for job-protected leave to care for a family member.

MANCHESTER, NH – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered more than $3.1 million in back wages and fringe benefits for more than 3,100 workers at a California subcontractor that provided enrollment and dental and vision benefits support to federal employees, retirees and their dependents.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that its Wage and Hour Division will offer online seminars for contracting agencies, contractors, unions, workers and other stakeholders on the requirements for paying prevailing wages on federally funded construction and service contracts.

KIELER, WI – One of the nation’s largest food safety sanitation services providers has paid $1.5 million in civil money penalties after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found the company employed at least 102 children – from 13 to 17 years of age – in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.

KIELER, WI – Uno de los proveedores de servicios de higiene y seguridad alimentaria más grandes del país ha pagado $1.5 millones en multas luego de que la División de Horas y Salarios del Departamento de Trabajo de los EE.UU. descubrió que la empresa empleó al menos a 102 niños de entre 13 y 17 años de edad en ocupaciones peligrosas y trabajando en turnos de noche en 13 instalaciones de procesamiento de carne en ocho estados.