You could be one of the more than 14,000 employees in Florida who have unclaimed earnings totaling over $6.5 million. If so, you should get yourself and your money ready, according to the US Department of Labor.
If you’re one of those workers, this is money you made but were not compensated for. The funds were obtained by the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division from companies that were determined to have violated federal wage rules by underpaying their employees.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, which addresses minimum wage, overtime compensation, and other regulations, may have been broken by the company.
It’s possible that a federal contractor or subcontractor violated the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts by failing to pay the local prevailing wage rate or fringe benefits. Florida has a high rate of pay breaches and fraud pertaining to H-2A visa workers.
However, people might have moved on to new positions and employers might not have given the most complete and up-to-date contact information by the time the investigation is over and Wage and Hour recovers the money, according to Acting Wage and Hour District Director Lissette Vargas.
Additionally, Labor will only keep the funds for a maximum of three years before giving them to the Treasury Department.
Approximately 222,000 workers owe Wage and Hour more than $161 million nationwide. Of those figures, Florida accounts for $6,577,333 and 14,174, respectively.
The counties of Hillsborough (1,107), Miami-Dade (2,329), and Orange (3,164) have the highest number of unclaimed workers’ earnings. Workers in Miami-Dade ($863,467), Orange ($638,104), and Broward ($541,524) are owed the highest amounts of money.
“In the South Florida community, wage violations are most common among construction, restaurant, agriculture, care worker and warehousing (shipping, receiving) workers,” Vargas stated.
How Can You Determine Whether You Owe Money?
The simplest method is to input the name of your employer’s company in the Workers Owed Wages database. In the event that employees of that company are in debt, you will proceed to the following stage, which is typing your name. You will eventually have to supply supporting files.
Additionally, you can visit the local Wage and Hour Division office at 4200 W. Cypress St. in Tampa, 510 Shotgun Rd. in Broward, 1818 S.
Australian Ave. in West Palm Beach, or contact 866-4US-WAGE. The local offices are located at 11400 N. Kendall Dr. in Miami-Dade. Wage and Hour claims to be able to work with individuals in nearly 200 languages, both in person and over the phone.
Source: yahoo.com
