Labor Department: "We Can't Compel Them To Pay"
After a woman complained to 2 Wants to Know about not being paid by her employer, it seems that the state has difficulty making an employer pay up.

Kernersville, NC -- Imagine working your normal 40-hour work week and when payday comes, your employer refuses to cut you a check. Now imagine that happening to you week after week. 2 Wants to Know discovered thousands of North Carolina workers are waiting for the money they worked hard to earn. Guess what? The state can't do much to help them collect it.

"I worked for him for 8 weeks. I got 4 weeks of paychecks," says Joyce Haines.

Her story seems unbelievable but Joyce had proof she worked for weeks and never got paid. She had documents from the North Carolina Labor Department showing her boss owed her money. She even had a returned check from the bank.

In response to Joyce's complaint, the State Department of Labor opened an investigation of At Your Service Locksmith and Towing in High Point and its owner, Thomas Hayes.

It's not the first time the state targeted Hayes. Joyce is one of six former employees who claim Hayes owes them a total of more than $5,000.

"His attitude is that he don't care. He doesn't care if he owes me or not. And I'm not the only one," says Joyce.

We tried to contact Hayes several times, visiting his business and home. He responded to us the same way he's responded to state investigators with very little information.

The Department of Labor has sent Hayes several letters, the oldest dating back to January 2008, asking him to provide proof he doesn't owe his former workers.

The letters went largely ignored even after Hayes was cited for failure to pay wages in June 2008.

"We can't compel them to pay, there's nothing in the statute that says if you don't pay this is going to happen," says Jim Taylor with the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division. He says employers can ignore his investigators and many of them do so without consequence.

A letter the state sent to one of Hayes' former workers states the investigation of Hayes "has been completed" and since he didn't respond "no further action will be taken."

Taylor says when employers don't cooperate, the state is forced to close the cases in order to move to thousands of other complaints, leaving victims with the option to fight for their money in civil court.

"If you take a staff of 20 investigators to handle 6- to 7,000 complaints a year, we can't take every case to the limit that taxpayers would want them to be taken to in some cases," says Taylor.

In the most extreme cases, the state can issue a subpoena demanding documentation from employers as they did in Thomas Hayes' case. If they ignore the subpoena, a judge can jail the employer for contempt of court, typically for 30 days. But these cases rarely reach a judge, even when employers continue to defy state investigators.

"What good is the labor board if they can't force someone to pay me, and employer to pay his employees?" asks Joyce.

So nearly a year since filing her complaint, Joyce Haines still waits and she holds several people responsible, "Well I hold the company that I worked for At Your Service Locksmith and Towing, and I also hold the labor board because they're no good."

Jim Taylor says he could use more employees to get to more of these cases. He isn't expecting it considering the state's budget situation. But, he also wouldn't mind a change to the state statute requiring local employers cooperate with these investigations.

As far as Thomas Hayes' case, he's been ordered to turn over documents to the state by May 8. If he doesn't, he could be held in contempt of court and sent to jail.

We were able to reach Thomas Hayes via phone. He denied he owed anyone money and says he's cooperating with the state. State representative Laura Wiley from Alamance County is sponsoring a bill that could help people recover what they're owed. It would give the state power to garnish a person's wages if a judge orders them to pay a debt.

Source: WFMY News 2