Labor Pains

The September/October 2012 issue of Arizona Business Magazine had comments from both John Thompson, editor of the firm's Wage & Hour Laws Blog and a partner in the Atlanta office, and Shayna Balch, an attorney in the Phoenix office. The article "Labor Pains" reported on a growing number of wage-and-hour claims against Arizona employers in the past year. Shayna said that, historically, wage-and-hour cases have not been an issue in Arizona. Because of that, employers are not prepared for the trend and she worries that this is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. John noted that there are multiple causes for the increase. "They include a greater familiarity of plaintiffs' lawyers with wage-hour laws and with the many areas which non-compliance can occur; workers' increasing awareness of wage-hour requirements – including via the Internet and the media; the growing number and complexity of the laws themselves; and the stepped-up enforcement efforts of government officials."