Creating a strategic enforcement approach to address wage theft: One academic’s journey in organizational change

Abstract

Strategic enforcement represents a proactive approach to using limited enforcement resources available to a regulatory agency to protect workers as required by the law. It does so by using enforcement tools, outreach, and collaboration with other government agencies, worker advocates, businesses, and the public to change employer behavior in a sustainable way. Strategic enforcement is critical given the limited resources available to government as well as because of the breaking up (fissuring) of modern employment that increases the prevalence of violations and makes responsibility for compliance more opaque. This article lays out the challenges in instituting such an approach based on the author’s experience in leading a major federal workplace agency in the US during the Obama administration. It describes the major elements of a strategic enforcement approach as well as the major organizational innovations that were necessary to put it into place.