In Congressional Hearing on Bush's Labor Dept. Ignoring and Lying to Workers, GOP Lawmakers Cry Wolf

AN ONGOING BUZZFLASH SERIES ON THE GOP ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES
by Meg White

A report out today from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) details widespread neglect and outright lies coming out of the Department of Labor's office that records and investigates labor law violation complaints.

The report, through analysis of both actual cases as well as cases called in by undercover investigators posing as tipsters and stiffed workers, concluded that the division failed to investigate serious cases 19 percent of the time.

Gregory Kutz, managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations at the GAO testified before the House Education and Labor Committee this morning about the investigation. He noted that the laxity at Wage and Hour Division (WHD) allowed some employers to feel safe in violating labor laws.

"This investigation clearly shows that Labor has left thousands of actual victims of wage theft who sought federal government assistance with nowhere to turn," Kutz said in his opening statement. "Far too often many of America's most vulnerable workers find themselves dealing with an agency concerned about resource limitations, with ineffective processes, and a lack of certain tools necessary to do timely and effective investigation of wage theft complaints. Unfortunately, far too often the result is unscrupulous employers taking advantage of our country's low wage workers."

The GAO found that workers at WHD repeatedly did not return messages left by complainants and failed to investigate entire cases. Many cases were never even recorded, including one complaint cooked up by GAO investigators about severe violations of child labor laws at a fictitious meatpacking plant. They reported significant delays of up to one year in simply opening cases; one case documented a WHD employee lying to a undercover investigator who was posing as a slighted worker.

As with most Congressional hearings however, politics was first on the list and the needs of workers came second. The questioning began with a tiff between current Committee Chair George Miller (D-CA) and former Chair Buck McKeon (R-CA). McKeon began his line of questioning with an accusation that the Democrats on the committee might be overreacting to the report in order to make the previous administration look bad.

"When I was in school, 80 percent was a B," McKeon said. "Maybe we're just holding this hearing to beat up on the Bush Administration."

Miller took offense to McKeon's comment.

"You want to keep talking about political blame... I don't remember any oversight on this issue prior to my being chair," Miller said noting he had only been chair of the committee for the past two years. "This is not new. It may be new to you and to this Congress."

Investigative powers aside, Miller was troubled by what appeared to be a systematic avoidance of telling the truth within the division. WHD workers were documented advising callers that they could be fired for opening an investigation against their employer. Other callers were told their cases were being worked on when they weren't.

The WHD database was also found to contain lies about resolved cases. Some cases were listed as closed, with entries saying the employer had paid the employees back fully, when payments had not been made. The agency took employers at their word that the cases had been resolved, and such entries inaccurately increased the success rate of the WHD office.

"That number probably is overstated based on a number of cases we've seen," Kutz said of the agency's successes.

In at least one case, the GAO called posing as an employee that was not paid back; that case was still listed as paid and ultimately closed with no further action taken by the government.

"Yeah, I'd say we have a cultural problem here if that's success," Miller said.

That wasn't the only mechanism used to inflate WHD's success rate. Not only were minor conciliation complaints often left uninvestigated, but also the GAO report noted that many offices were instructed "not to record unsuccessful conciliations in its database, making WHD appear better at resolving conciliations than it actually is."

But serious accusations of the government lying to Americans in need of help were not enough to drive the GOP off its talking points. Right after he said how important it is that Americans be paid reasonable wages, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) used his entire interrogation period at today's hearing to rail against universal healthcare. He argued that the incompetence demonstrated by the WHD employees was a good enough reason not to pursue nationalized healthcare.

He asked Kutz if there were a nationalized healthcare program, "would these be the same level of employee answering the phone?"

The GAO investigator seemed a little bewildered and explained that there is a range of government employees that answer the phone and that same range would likely apply to people serving in a national healthcare agency. Price took this answer to mean the House should not advocate the institution of such an agency.

"Consequently it is instructive to look to other areas of the government," he said, before "allowing the government to be more intrusive."

Almost as an aside, Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) dismissed Price's argument as spurious.

"We are going to have comprehensive national healthcare," Hare said. With regard to Americans who don‘t have insurance, Hare said it's more important that they have access to healthcare.

"I don't think they're going to have to worry about those answering the phone," he said.

Hare continued, insisting that the previous administration does bear some of the blame for their sheer negligence of labor issues. He said that during his time on the committee he'd seen former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao twice: once in the backseat of a car during a reelection parade for her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and once at President Barack Obama's inauguration.

Hare also criticized Chao's decision to cut funding for the very division that was the topic of the GAO investigation.

"When you cut the funding for the Wage and Hour Division, you're going to have problems," he said.

While GAO investigators did note that increased funding and manpower could help, they also noted a lack of basic resources and technology as part of the current problem. Kutz noted that WHD workers often had to take employers' words as the truth because they could not independently verify whether or not the company in question had declared bankruptcy, or in fact was even still in business. The information in these cases is a matter of public record, but Kutz said the WHD offices don't have access to that information.

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) addressed culpability from a resource standpoint, asking if WHD or the Labor Department ever sought to have such information at their fingertips.

"Lack of resources and capricious enforcement are generally a reflection of administration priorities," Titus said, asking Kutz whether or not the GAO noticed an interest among Department of Labor heads in pursuing access to the resources necessary to do the job well.

"It seemed to be a new idea," Kutz told Titus about the Labor bureaucrats he spoke to about resource deficiencies. "It wasn't something that they explored in the past."

Though there was no representative of the Labor Department present at the hearing, Miller said his committee would be working closely with the federal agency. And there are indications that various "new ideas" would be on the table. Recently confirmed Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said the WHD would be increasing its staff of investigators by 250 "to refocus the agency" on labor law enforcement.

AN ONGOING BUZZFLASH SERIES ON THE GOP ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES