Unpaid overtime, tips quietly deducted, being told to clock out and keep working — wage theft doesn't require a private employment lawyer to fix. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) investigates Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) violations for free, and you don't need to be a legal expert to file.
The statute of limitations that determines how much you can recover
Under the FLSA, you can generally recover unpaid wages going back 2 years. That extends to 3 years if you can show the employer's violation was willful — meaning they knew about the specific requirement and intentionally didn't comply, not just that they were generally aware wage laws exist. This distinction matters in practice: courts have found that an employer's general awareness of the FLSA isn't enough on its own to prove willfulness for a specific violation.
Retaliation is illegal — and how it's actually remedied
Section 15(a)(3) of the FLSA makes it illegal for an employer to fire, demote, cut hours, or otherwise punish you for filing a wage complaint or cooperating with an investigation — even an internal complaint to HR can count as protected activity, not just a formal DOL filing. It's worth being precise about how this is actually remedied: retaliation claims are primarily civil matters, resulting in reinstatement, back pay, and an equal amount in liquidated damages (and in some cases, punitive damages). Willful FLSA violations can separately carry criminal penalties — fines up to $10,000 and potential imprisonment on a second conviction — but that criminal penalty framework applies to willful FLSA violations generally, not as an automatic consequence specifically triggered by retaliation. Retaliation claims themselves have the same 2-year (3 if willful) filing window as wage claims.
Building your case before you file
- Keep your own independent log of hours actually worked — a personal notebook or dated digital notes — since employer time-clock records can be altered or simply wrong
- Save every pay stub and compare it against your own log for the specific discrepancy
- Note the company's structure — owner/manager names, if you know them — since this helps WHD identify who's actually liable
How to file with the WHD
- Contact the Wage and Hour Division by phone (1-866-4-US-WAGE) or through their online complaint form.
- Provide the discrepancy between hours worked and hours paid, your pay stubs, and your own independent time log.
- Complaints are confidential — your name and the nature of your complaint generally aren't disclosed to the employer unless it becomes necessary to reveal your identity, with your permission, to pursue the case.
- If WHD confirms a violation, it can supervise payment of back wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages — effectively doubling what's owed — or refer the case to the Solicitor of Labor for a direct federal lawsuit if the employer refuses to comply.