Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was interviewed on KQED’s The California Report, in “California Wage Theft Victims Miss Out on Millions in Collected Funds” with Farida Jhabvala Romero.

Following is an excerpt:

Federal labor enforcement officials recover millions of dollars each year from employers who break minimum wage or overtime pay laws, but a significant percentage never makes it to workers who are owed.

More than $166 million was unclaimed by nearly 200,000 wage theft victims over the last three years, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. If workers don’t claim that money within three years, it’s sent to the U.S. Treasury.

Many don’t know they are entitled to compensation. More than 15,000 employees with money waiting for them worked for businesses in California, one of the top states with unclaimed wages. …

Still, a top priority of the department is not distributing all uncollected wages but increasing businesses’ compliance with the rules, said Paul DeCamp, an attorney who ran the wage and hour division during the George W. Bush administration.

“Honestly, I think the bigger priority for the department is stopping the violations and getting the back wages disgorged” from employers, said DeCamp, who represents and advises businesses at Epstein Becker Green, a law firm. “And if we can get the wages into the hands of the workers, all the better.”

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