New Mexico district court judge David Thompson scheduled a hearing on Friday for public testimony on an agreement that would protect workers against wage theft. The agreement is part of a settlement in a case against New Mexico’s Department of Workforce Solutions, which has been accused of dismissing several wage-theft complaints amounting to more than $10,000 in lost wages and not holding employers liable for their breach of minimum wage laws. The settlement stipulates that the Department force offending employers to pay back wages three times the amount that they initially failed to pay their employees.
See "Judge considers pact to bolster wage-theft enforcement", The Associate Press, The Seattle Times, March 9, 2018