Democratic lawmakers feel that Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is not doing enough to ensure that minimum wage workers are receiving as much as they are promised by their employers. They allege that, although the laws are on the books, Ms. Bondi is remiss in her duty to enforce the laws as effectively as she should. According to Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, an attorney at Kelley/Uustal, “the attorney general’s office is simply not enforcing the minimum wage in the way that other states do.”
Employers may be getting away with paying their workers less than minimum wage, either by paying their employees for fewer hours than they actually worked or by paying a weekly salary that amounts to less than their total hourly earnings. For working families, this illegal activity is a major concern.
Currently, Florida’s minimum wage is $8.05 per hour, which would earn a full-time worker a meager $16,744 per year. Many employees are not aware that they can take action and force their employers to pay what they owe. Those who suffer from wage theft can call the Attorney General’s Office, but Rodriguez contends that it is rare that the state of Florida will sue on behalf of the worker. Rodriguez feels that Bondi should be more aggressively concerned with wage enforcement cases, and that they should take precedent over other types of cases.
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