RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones has created a new unit in his office dedicated to worker protection.
The unit will work in tandem with the Department of Labor and Industry to investigate complaints made by workers on issues like wage theft, retaliation, and employee misclassification.
In its annual report last year, the Department of Labor and Industry said it received over 1,600 complaints about unpaid wages — a 64% increase — and recovered over $645,000 for workers.
"We want to make sure that workers across Virginia are not being shorted on their paychecks, that they are not being misclassified, that the conditions that they're working in are safe, and that is exactly what this group will do to finally have some teeth to go after bad actors here in this Commonwealth," Jones said.
The recent state budget allocated $500,000 for the creation of the unit. It will consist of three people to start, but Jones said he hopes to grow it in the future.
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