Underpaid workers win $7.1 million

State says more than 5,000 employees were unfairly compensated

Businesses that underpaid workers paid out more than $7.1 million in state recovery actions last fiscal year, a $1 million increase from a year earlier.

The state Department of Labor said in a release that it intervened in actions that returned $7,147,775 to underpaid workers in the 2015-2016 fiscal year that ended in June. The recoveries helped more than 5,000 workers who were unfairly compensated, it said.

Almost $1.79 million of the total related to unpaid wages; $1.14 million was for failing to pay minimum wage or overtime, and more than $2.57 million went to employees incorrectly paid for working at public-contract construction sites.

“It is important to the financial strength of this state that our working men and women are properly paid for the work they do and are correctly compensated with the wages they rightfully earn,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in a statement.

Department of Labor Commissioner Scott D. Jackson said these figures are in addition to efforts to enforce violations of workplace standards such as allowing underage workers to do night work, improper work hours for minors and minors illegally working. The department’s Division of Wage and Workplace Standards investigated 180 workplace-standards cases.

“While we want our residents to be paid properly for the work they do, education and outreach is vital in our efforts toward helping employers gain a better understanding of federal and state laws,” Jackson said in a statement.

In addition, the department reported issuing 226 stop-work orders related to businesses failing to pay into the workers compensation system or neglecting to keep accurate pay records. Many times, the violations involved misrepresenting employees as independent contractors, the department said.

For information on workplace rules, visit www.ct.gov/dol and look for the “Wage Laws and Workplace Safety” box.