Same Law, Different Day: A Survey of the Last Thirty Years of Wage Litigation and Its Impact on Low-Wage Workers
![handle is hein.journals/hlelj30 and id is 379 raw text is: SAME LAW, DIFFERENT DAY: A SURVEY OF THE
LAST THIRTY YEARS OF WAGE LITIGATION
AND ITS IMPACT ON LOW-WAGE WORKERS
Nantiya Ruan*
I. INTRODUCTION
There can be little doubt that actions to recover lost wages from
employers have increased dramatically in the last thirty years. Since the
1970s, American workers have become subject to a 24/7 marketplace
workweek.' Off-the-clock work, misclassification, contingent jobs,
and wage theft have become far more prevalent in the last three decades.
A few snapshots in time reflect this trend. In 1997, some 1,600 wage
suits were filed in federal court.2 In 2007, just ten years later, the
number of wage suits jumped to 7,310.3 In just one year, 2006-2007,
the number of filed wage cases increased by 73 percent.4
Strangely, this increase was not brought about by an expansion of
wage rights, either statutorily or judicially. Wage and hour protections
have remained mostly unchanged since the Fair Labor Standards Act's
enactment in 193 8.5 Instead, this increase suggests that protecting low-
wage workers has taken on a new urgency.
This Article surveys the major trends in wage litigation over the last
thirty years. Common threads of vulnerability, scarce resources,
* J.D., M.S.W., Lawyering Process Professor, Director of Workplace Law Program,
University of Denver Sturm College of Law. A heartfelt thank you to Professors Patience Crowder,
Chris Lasch, Scott Moss, and Robin Walker-Sterling, for their helpful feedback. Special thanks to
Joseph Doyle for his excellent research assistance.
1. See Scott Miller, Revitalizing the FLSA, 19 HOFsTRA LAB. & EMP. L. J. 1, 4 (2001).
2. See Nantiya Ruan, Facilitating Wage Theft: How Courts Use Procedural Rules to
Undermine Substantive Rights of Low-Wage Workers, 63 VAND. L. REv. 727, 735 (2010)
[hereinafter Ruan, Facilitating Wage Theft] (citing LEONIDAS RALPH MECHAM, ADMIN. OFFICE OF
THE U.S. COURTS, JUDICIAL BUSINESS OF THE UNITED STATES COURTS: 1997 ANNUAL REPORT OF
THE DIRECTOR 133 tbl.C-2A (1997), available at http://www.uscourts.gov/judicial
business/contents.html).
3. Id.
4. Id.
5. 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (2006).
355](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hlelj30&div=17&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Same Law, Different Day: A Survey of the Last Thirty Years of Wage Litigation and Its Impact on Low-Wage Workers
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