"Ensuring Fair Pay through Wage & Hour Regulations at the Department of Labor," by Jake Meyers, Abdul Sigal, and David Thalenberg

MDP students Jake Meyers and Abdul Sigal presented a poster at the 2019 UA Peace Corps Coverdell Fellows Outreach + Research Showcase. The poster, co-authored with Coverdell Fellow and UA Graduate Student David Thalenberg, was based on their community outreach placement as part of their Coverdell Fellowship. 

"The Wage and Hours Division is a federal agency operating in all 50 states and is comprised of a wide variety of staff including investigators, supervisors, analysts, technicians, and administrative employees. These laws protect over 135 million workers in more than 7.3 million establishments. WHD investigations seek to ensure that workers are fairly compensated for their hours worked and typically awards employees who were illegally compensated with back wages. In the last 5 years, more than $1.3 billion in back wages were returned to the workers in the US.

"Coverdell Fellows working as interns in the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, Abdul Sigal, Jake Meyers, and David Thalenberg worked alongside federal investigators and administrators on a case that resulted in $1 million in back wages and liquidated damages. The case entailed a major contracting firm that violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by misclassifying construction workers as piece rate wage earners instead of hourly wage workers. Misclassifying contractors is a common violation of the FLSA that results in workers earning below minimum wage. The Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division works to ensure that all workers on U.S. soil are fairly compensated."