Recently, the the White House and the U.S. Department of Labor announced that they were getting into the legal referral business. I guess the government does not have enough on their hands so they needed to team up with the American Bar Association (ABA) to get them some more business.
Roughly 40,000 workers contact the U.S. Department of Labor every year with complaints about their bosses. Due to budget cuts, the Department cannot answer all the calls. So instead of throwing a little more money at the Department, they decided to form a new “alliance” with the ABA.
Instead of helping businesses create jobs, the Department of Labor seems more focused on creating more lawsuits. In 2009, Kiplinger reported that the 10 largest wage and hour settlements totaled nearly $364 million. That was 44% higher than the ten largest in 2008. One lawyer who was quoted in the article as saying that these cases are easy to win and involve big payouts, especially when you are looking at “two or three years of back pay and benefits.” If only the employees knew what they are getting into.
Government should not be in the legal referral business. They should be in the job creation business. If you want to join us in asking the President and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to unplug their Sue Your Boss hotline, click here.
If the President truly believes that business is the generator of jobs he might want to re-think his alliance with trial lawyers. Cross posted at www.cala.com.