Iowa joins DOL, 13 states to fight misclassification

Say it, brother.

Iowa just became the 14th state to join with the U.S. Department of Labor to fight misclassification of workers.

Mary Beth Maxwell, acting deputy administrator of DOL's Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement:

We're standing united to end the practice of misclassifying employees.

Franczek Radelet and Staci Ketay Rotman explain in Lexology:

Iowa is the latest State to sign a Memorandum of Understanding and join forces with the U.S. Department of Labor to combat employee misclassification.  Although Labor Secretary Solis has announced her resignation, it appears that the Misclassification Initiative that she championed continues, at least for now. 

As mentioned in a previous post, these Memorandums of Understanding with state government agencies arose as part of the DOL’s Misclassification Initiative, with the goal of preventing, detecting and remedying employee misclassification.  Iowa is now the fourteenth State to sign one of these Memorandums after California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Utah and Washington.  The Memorandums allow the DOL to share information and to coordinate efforts with participating states as part of its Misclassification Initiative.

The Department of Labor reports that $9.5 million has been collected for about 11,400 misclassified workers since September 2011. That's when the Wage and Hour Division began entering into memorandums of understanding with states and announced a similar partnership with the Internal Revenue Service..