Wage and Hour Enforcement Database Readme.txt March 2008 ------------- Introduction ------------- The Wage and Hour Enforcement Database is from the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor. The WHD is responsible for the enforcement of several labor laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. These laws cover areas such as child labor, overtime, minimum wage, and medical or family leave. The Wage and Hour Enforcement database contains information about the violations, penalties, and employers for nearly 735,000 cases that have been closed between roughly the 1980s and Dec. 31, 2007. --------------------------------- Note About Latest Update for 2008 --------------------------------- Much information has been removed from the most current Wage and Hour dataset by the U.S. Department of Labor. The agency has declined to release information relating to the specifics of child-labor violations, which in essence means that the table we called "CL_SUM" -- which detailed the counts and injuries (where applicable) of young workers in labor-law cases -- was not included with this year's release. In addition, three lookup tables, V_ACTION, V_RANGES, V_EST_TY, have been removed. Among those fields removed from the main tables are those showing phone numbers for business employers in the database. NICAR is appealing all of the redactions. In the interests of providing our members with the most current dataset, we are serving this truncated data for now. If our appeal is successful, of course the full dataset as it has appeared in year before will be served. There is one new table this year, CMP_ASSM, which shows when assessments for labor-law violations were sent out and the amount employers were fined. For more information, please see the file Dictionary.xls. The dictionary.xls file has also been updated to reflect NICAR table and field names for easier use - before, it retained the original OSHA names. ------ Tables ------ There are 6 main tables in this database and 19 lookup tables. KASE.dbf - Main table with the information about the dates of the action, and the total amount of back wages and compensation assessed and paid, the number of employees involved in the case, the originating office and date, and the status. EMPLOYER.dbf - Case Employer. Holds specific information about the employer involved in the case, including address, business type, number of employees, and number involved in violation. One record for each case. SITES.dbf - Employer Sites. Contains address, and phone number for the location involved in the enforcement action. There will only be a record when a case involves multiple sites. Otherwise all site information will be included in the employer table. ACT_SUM.dbf - Case Act Summary. This table includes specific information for each act violation associated with a particular case, including total number of violations, and amount of back wages assessed and paid. A case can include multiple act summaries. EER_SUM.dbf - Case Employer and Employee Summary. This table contains basic information about each act violation, such as the number of employees involved, and the amount of wages or compensation assessed and paid. EER_VIOL.dbf - Case Violations. This table lists additional information about each act violation, including injury level, compliance status, and the number of lost work days. CMP_ASSM.DBF - Letters of assessment. This table provides information on letters sent to alleged violators of labor laws and how much the assessment (fine) is for. New table in 2008. ------------- Lookup Tables ------------- V_ACT.dbf - Contains information about each act, including the act name, what size business it applies to, and minimum revenue it covers. - Lookup for act_id field in Act_sum table. - act_id field in Eer_sum. - act_id field in Eer_viol. V_CODES.dbf - Lookup of violations. - viol_type field in Eer_viol. V_VIOLS.dbf - Violation type and descriptions of the violations. - viol_id field in Eer_viol. V_BUS.dbf - Contains the business type of the employer (Corporation, partnership, etc.). - Er_bus_org in Employer. _ Theoretically relates to Er_bus_org in Sites, as well. V_BUS_ST.dbf - Business Status (in business, bankruptcy, etc.). - Est_status field in Employer table. V_CASE.dbf - Status of the case (under investigation, assigned, etc.). - Relates to case_statu field in Kase table. All are 7 - Concluded. V_CONCL.dbf - Conclude Reason (why they concluded the investigation.) - Conclude_r in Kase table. V_COMPLY.dbf - Compliance Status (agree, refuse, etc.). - Compliance in Kase table. - Compliance in Act_sum - Compliance in Eer_viol V_COUNTY.dbf - County name lookup table and FIPS codes. - Er_county in Employer table. - Er_sts_cou in sites table. V_STATE.dbf - State code lookup table. - A lookup for a lookup. Relates to state_id in v_county table. V_ER_TYP.dbf - Employer Type. - Er_type_id in Employer. - Er_sts_typ in Sites. V_EST_ST.dbf - Establishment status (open or closed). - Relates to Est_status in Employer table. V_INJ_LV.dbf - Injury level (serious, death, etc.). - Relates to Inj_lev in Eer_viol table. V_INV_TO.dbf - Description of the type of investigation. - Corresponds to KASE.dbf V_REAS.dbf - Reason an FMLA violation was resolved. - Comply_rea in Eer_viol. V_SPEC_C.dbf - Special Coverage (public agency, grandfather, etc.). - Spec_cover field in Employer table. V_NAICS.dbf - NAICS lookup table. Contains information about the business type. - Er_naics in Employer table. V_INT_COMM.dbf - Describes level of involvement in interstate commerce. - Er_ic_coverage_i in Employer. V_OFFICE.dbf - Contains address, phone number and other information for the wages and hours office handling the enforcement. - Relates to four fields in Kase: Originating_ro, Originating_do, Originating_ao and Originating_fo. Tells you what office handled the case at the regional, area, district and field levels. V_LEVEL.dbf - Event level (district, field, etc.). - Another lookup for a lookup. Relates to the office_lev field in v_office. V_STATE.dbf - State abbreviation, full name and FIPS code lookup. V_VIO_RE.dbf - Description of the violation reason. - Corresponds to reason_id in EER_VIOL.dbf ------------------- Other Documentation ------------------- Dictionary.xls - Contains the record layout for all data and lookup tables, including a crosswalk between NICAR and DOL field names, and a description of each field. garn01.pdf - Text of the Federal Wage Garnishment Law. FairLaborStandAct.pdf - Text of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Whd_fs.pdf - Basic information about the Wages and Hours Division of the Department of Labor, provided by the Wages and Hours Division. Legal.txt - Legal information the your use of the data. ------------ Special Note ------------ From the Wages and Hours Division Web site: "Fiscal year 2003 is the first year that WHD is able to report on the actual assessed civil money penalties since implementation of its new database. In previous years, the reported civil money penalty assessments were the amounts that became due in the fiscal year following any post assessment negotiations with fined employers. For this reason, comparisons to prior year reporting on civil money penalty assessments would not be appropriate." Also, table CL_SUM lists a field for "total number of children involved," but the field is blank in all cases. This is an accurate reproduction of the data. The total that should be present is easily calculated using the other information in the table. ---------------- Importing Tables ---------------- The tables are all in Dbase IV format, which can be easily imported into any database manager program, including Microsoft Access. Here are the directions for Access: 1) Copy the tables from the CD to your hard drive. 2) Open a blank database in Access, name it and save it. 3) Inside the new database, in the File menu select "Get external data" Then select "Import." 4) An import wizard will ask you to locate the file(s). You will need to change the "file of type" to "Dbase IV". 5) Each table will need to be imported separately. --------------------------- Stories and Uplink Articles --------------------------- You may order this story from the IRE Resource Center by calling (573) 882-3364. Story # 18783 Sweat and Tears (Sweatshop Series) A Daily News investigation reveals that "New York City's garment industry routinely violates federal and state wage and hour laws." All major retailers sell clothes made in New York sweatshops by exploiting illegal Chinese immigrants. Garment workers work long hours for seven days a week, and get wages below the minimum of $5.15 per hour. Federal labor officials, as well as a state labor task force, keep "violations secret from retailers to protect brand name reputations and preserve business for local manufacturers and contractors." The investigation examines the price-making principles of the apparel market, and finds that avoiding illegal practices will have to either raise the clothes' prices, or cut the retailers' profits.