Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones has announced the creation of a new Worker Protection Unit within his office. Jones said this new Civil Enforcement Team would hold employers accountable when they violate State Labor Laws. “This is an enforcement operation that we are putting half a million dollars behind, hiring a Unit Manager, an Assistant Attorney General and an Investigator,” Jones said. “And their mission is simple: To protect people on the job, to enforce Virginia law ‘and to hold bad actors accountable.’” Jones said the new Unit would go after cases of wage theft, Employee misclassification and Worker abuse. The Unit will review records, interview witnesses and conduct inspections. If it finds wrongdoing, the Unit will seek back pay, civil penalties and injunctions. Jones said the idea for a Worker Protection Unit came from the Labor Community. “You showed us how complaints could bounce from office to office to office while someone was still waiting for help,” Jones said. “You told us about companies counting on no one enforcing the fact that they were cheating their people.”

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