When Don Sherman's phone rang in his office one morning last week, he knew right away what it was about.

"That's another worker who didn't get paid," he said.

Sherman, executive director of the Cincinnati Interfaith Workers' Center, has fielded calls like this every week for most of the year from construction workers, maids and fast-food restaurant workers who claim they were cheated by their bosses.

Sherman's group, which helps workers recover money they are owed, is on the front lines of a growing fight over wage theft.

Complaints of underpayment or non-payment of wages have risen sharply during the past two years, in part because more businesses are cutting corners or shutting down in these tough economic times.

The Ohio Department of Commerce saw a nearly 50 percent increase in minimum wage complaints from 2007 to this year and more than doubled the amount of unpaid wages it has collected on behalf of workers. Complaints also are up in Kentucky, where the state's unpaid wage collections have nearly doubled from 2007 to this year.

Sherman said his group has recovered almost as much in back wages so far this year - $164,000 - as it did in the past two years combined.

"It seems like locally there's been an explosion," Sherman said. "We've seen more and more of that in the last six months, in particular, as the economy hit bottom."
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