Current and former employees of Flat Rate Movers and Mystique clothing stores received good news yesterday. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced these 400 workers will receive restitution funds for unpaid overtime and minimum wage violations. The 306 current and former employees of Flat Rate Movers, a multistate moving and storage company with headquarters in New York City, are being paid $1.13 million. Approximately 100 employees of Mystique in New York City have also begun receiving restitution as part of a $950,000 settlement.

This is a cross-post from Regs Talk, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) blog. Catherine Ruckelshaus is the legal co-director of NELP. 

Big drug companies’ salespeople don’t usually inspire much sympathy for being overworked or exploited. But last week’s Supreme Court decision in Christopher v. GlaxoSmithKline was a reminder that even pharmaceutical sales representatives, who brought a case for working 60-odd hours a week without being paid overtime, can face unfair working conditions that need to be checked.

This week marks the 74th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which established a minimum wage floor, outlawed some forms of child labor and discouraged overly long workweeks by requiring premium pay for any hours worked over 40 in a week. By paying time-and-a-half of one’s regular hourly wage for overtime, the policy is intended not only to compensate workers for long hours but also to promote work sharing or spreading by employers, who can hire additional workers for the extra hours needed. Especially in tough economic times, it’s a practice that is not only fair but makes good economic sense.

The nearly 2 million home care workers—about 92 percent of whom are women—who take care of the elderly and people with disabilities often work 12-hour days and 60 to 70 hours a week. But they are seldom paid overtime and their net income is often less than the minimum wage. Unlike workers covered by federal labor laws, they are not paid for all the hours they are on the clock, witnesses told a U.S. House hearing Tuesday.

In December, the Obama administration proposed a new rule to bring the nation’s nearly 2 million homecare workers under the protection of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) minimum wage, overtime and other provisions.

Migrant workers face tremendous pressure and exploitation in dynamic and wealthy South Korea, reports the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Timothy Ryan.

In one of the richest and the most Internet-wired countries in the world, you might assume that workers’ and migrants’ rights are respected. You’d be wrong.

A new report shows how wage theft reaches deep into the low-wage economy.

“The Movement to End Wage Theft” illustrates the problem with the stories of workers employed by a grocery chain, a temp agency, a construction company and other incorporated businesses. These workers’ wages were stolen by their employers who failed to pay the minimum wage or overtime, or refused to abide by work-break and safety rules.

While 45 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wage laws, that does not mean they are followed or enforced, according to a new report released by the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia University Law School.