U.S. Department Of Labor Looks To Return Back Wages

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — The Labor Department says $1.4 million in back wages is owed to Minnesota workers and more than $57,000 to North Dakota workers.

“We’re holding wages for workers as part of our investigative process at the time the employer was going to pay out wages as part of that and we’re not able to find these workers. And so the wages were paid to us. And we’re holding them trying to locate the workers. Many of them moved or changed their phone number,” said Brian Mundahl, Senior Investigator for the Wage and Hour Division of The Department of Labor.

The tool, Workers Owed Wages, or WOW is an online form that provides workers a way to verify if they are eligible to claim wages an employer or former employer may owe them. Investigations into the wage amount and workers’ missing money took 2 years to put together within each state.

“Mistakes were made, intentional or not, but sometimes wages aren’t paid correctly. And you know our mission is to get these wages back into the hands of the workers. So it’s a very effective tool. We just want to get the message out there and let workers know that this is available. And if you believe you’re owed money, take a look and see if your name’s there.”

Just in North Dakota alone, there are 145 workers who have not received pay from their employers.

“We found these workers, these were businesses that were in North Dakota that were investigated where we found there was some minimum wage or overtime wages that were owed and so we believe that they’re here because that’s where the employer was at the time.”

People who have lived and worked in North Dakota previously and believe they are missing wages can check the WOW website.