The Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, helps to ensure that Texas employees get paid fairly for any and all time that they’ve worked. All too often, though, an employer can profit from unpaid work by either accidentally or intentionally underpaying a worker.
If an employee suspects that they haven’t been paid for all the hours they’ve worked, they can file an FLSA claim with the U.S. Department of Labor. For some people, this process can seem too intimidating, but they have a right to those wages.
How do you file an FLSA claim?
You can file a complaint to the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. The process is easy, but it does require that you provide proof and examples of when you might have gotten paid less.
From there, the Wage and Hour Division will pursue a complaint on your behalf or file a lawsuit against your employer. During this time, your employer is not allowed to retaliate, so you should be able to keep your job should you desire.
What happens to your employer after you file?
The action that the Wage and Hour Division takes against your employer depends entirely on the severity of the violation of the law. For example, if it was only a few hours that were incorrectly paid out due to a system error, then your employer might get a warning and be forced to pay what you’re owed.
However, if it’s proven to be deliberate over the course of several months, your employer would be ordered to pay the wages in addition to facing a severe fine. In some cases, the business might face criminal charges.
When should you file a claim?
You may want to file a claim as soon as you suspect that your employer hasn’t paid you fairly. It might be scary, but filing an FLSA claim is one of the only ways to ensure that you’re paid what you’re owed.