Executive Suite: Irv Miljoner

Irv Miljoner, head of the U.S. Department of Labor Long Island office, enforces federal labor laws here, and he says violations are on the rise.

Key targets for his office are employers who fail to pay employees minimum wage and overtime, or pay them off the books. Miljoner also said an increasing number of employers don't pay some workers at all.

Last week the labor department announced that an initiative focusing on Long Island pizza and pasta restaurants had recovered $2.3 million in back wages for 578 workers. The effort began in October 2010, and Miljoner's office conducted the investigations that led to the recoveries.

He said his office is one of the country's busiest. Of the estimated 140 cases the U.S. labor department's wage and hour division litigated in the fiscal year ended October 2010, almost a third, or 43, came from the Long Island office.

Miljoner, 59, has been district director since 1996. He spoke to Newsday about the challenges of labor-law enforcement.

Has compliance gotten better or worse?
In the last two years things have gotten worse in terms of the severity of violations. It's common for us to find people paid below minimum wage, and they are being paid way below minimum wage. Ten years ago it would be unusual for us to find a minimum-wage violation at all. And if we did, it wasn't a severe minimum-wage violation. But now we're finding more frequent minimum-wage violations. And the severity is off the charts. The worst-case scenario was a gas station case in which we found workers working seven days a week, 17 hours a day, 119 hours a week and being paid $250 or $300 a week.. . . The other big one is the number of people who are being paid cash off the books.

When you investigate employers for violations, what explanations do they offer?
What the lawyers tell us when we try to negotiate a resolution in these cases is: "My client just cannot pay overtime. This is how the industry works. Nobody pays overtime, because if we did, we'd have to charge $22 for chicken Parmigiana instead of $18, and all of the customers would just go across the street." I said, "OK. That's why you need us to level the competitive field."

Are the investigations most often triggered by employee complaints?
Yes, [and] increasingly we are targeting employers for investigations. Does that mean you just walk in and say, "Let's see your books?" We might make an appointment. But if have any suspicions, we probably won't. We're a civil enforcement agency, so we will conduct an audit. We don't come in with badges flashing. We do interview workers. But we don't do it at lunch time in a busy restaurant. We'll do it after hours.

What are your outreach activities?
It's a wide range of activities meant to impact workers as well as employers. So we'll do a community fair. We'll set up an exhibit table at a Hispanic day fair. I've spoken to different employer groups like the LIA [Long Island Association], the HIA [Hauppauge Industrial Association] and the chambers of commerce and their representatives.

What else would you like to add?
We are challenged quite often, especially with this more stringent enforcement protocol, about whether or not we are hurting businesses these days, especially when everyone's really suffering in the economy. I believe in supporting business, but the legitimate businesses are whom I want to support.

Agency snapshot

Name. Irv Miljoner

Title. District director
Organization. LI office, U.S. Department of Labor
What it does. Enforces federal labor law
Employees. 26