By Layron Livingston – Reporter
Posted: 6:28 PM, January 22, 2019
MIAMI – You got the job. You did the work. But what do you do when you don’t get paid?
Wage theft is a real issue impacting workers in a wide array of industries, from restaurants and retail to construction and the corporate world.
“I think you have a lot of employees who are being promised payments, and sometimes, that promise may be fulfilled, but in many times, it’s not,” Bryant Acevedo said.
Acevedo is a public information officer with the Miami-Dade County Office of Consumer Protection.
“Do you try to sue? What do you do? I think there are a lot of people who don’t even know where to start,” he said.
Acevedo said the consumer protection office’s Wage Theft Program helps workers investigate and recover unpaid wages for free.
The office was able to successfully conciliate $361,742 worth of unpaid wages in 2017.
“Wage theft is where you have an employee who is simply not being paid [or] compensated for their work,” Acevedo said.
Types of complaints handled by the Office of Consumer Protection Wage Theft Program include:
Unpaid wages
Underpaid wages
Fewer hours than worked
Work completed after notice of separation
Work completed during pay period of termination
Rate lower than agreed upon
Unpaid vacation/sick time
Unpaid commissions
Bounced paychecks
Promised payments