Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul
Chicago – Heading into Labor Day weekend, Attorney General Kwame Raoul highlighted a new report detailing actions his office has taken during the past year to advocate for and protect Illinois workers.
The Attorney General’s Workplace Rights Bureau was codified in state statute in 2020 and has since collected more than $27 million in owed wages and restitution for workers and collected $935,000 in penalties against companies alleged to have discriminated against workers on the basis of race or sex.
“The dedicated attorneys and staff of my office’s Workplace Rights Bureau work every day to uphold and defend Illinois laws, resolve serious and persistent violations of workers’ rights, and ensure that law-abiding businesses are not undercut by those that violate the law to gain unfair advantages,” Raoul said. “I am committed to continuing to fight for workers’ rights, and I encourage anyone with questions or concerns about their workplace to reach out to my office’s Workplace Rights Bureau.”
The Workplace Rights Bureau advances the employment rights of all Illinois residents by taking actions, such as investigating labor law violations, collecting owed wages and civil penalties and filing lawsuits to protect Illinois workers.
The Attorney General’s office partners with the Illinois Department of Labor and coordinates with federal agencies to ensure minors, who are among the most vulnerable workers, are protected from labor exploitation by unscrupulous employers. The bureau’s notable work in the past year includes uncovering child labor violations in meatpacking plants.
In January 2025, the Attorney General’s office and Illinois Department of Labor settled a child labor investigation into Hearthside Food Solutions, LLC for $4.5 million. The settlement was reached just before the company filed for bankruptcy and resolved findings that Hearthside, one of the largest food manufacturers in the nation, had minors working as temporary employees in hazardous positions at its facilities in Illinois.
Raoul’s office also works to protect the temporary labor market from anticompetitive schemes. This summer, Attorney General Raoul’s Antitrust and Workplace Rights bureaus fully resolved a lawsuit the office had filed against three temporary staffing agencies, Elite Staffing, Inc., Metro Staff, Inc., and Midway Staffing, Inc., and their common client, Colony Display, LLC, alleging the staffing agencies entered into an unlawful no-poach conspiracy not to recruit, solicit, or hire temporary employees from one another at their common client’s worksite.
In July 2025, Raoul reached a $1 million settlement with Midway, the final defendant. The office recovered a total of $5.5 million from all four defendants. The settlement with Midway requires the company to compensate temporary workers who were impacted by the no-poach agreement, to implement compliance measures and take steps to ensure that affected workers are free to work for the employer of their choice.
Attorney General Raoul’s 2025 Labor Day Report, which is also available in Spanish, highlights the Hearthside and Midway settlements along with other recent settlements the office has obtained on behalf of Illinois workers:
Attorney General Raoul works with attorneys general offices throughout the country to advocate for workers’ rights and hold accountable those that undermine the law, including the federal government. Raoul frequently collaborates with other attorneys general to challenge actions by the Trump Administration that have threatened to roll back worker protections, dismantle worker protection institutions, and harm workers.
In the past year, Attorney General Raoul and a coalition of state attorneys general sued the Trump Administration over its attempts to unlawfully dismantle the Department of Education and institute mass layoffs and office closures at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Attorney General Raoul and the Massachusetts Attorney General led a coalition of attorneys general in issuing guidance to help businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations understand the viability and importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies and practices in creating and maintaining legally compliant and thriving workplaces. The guidance responds to concerns from employers following a Trump Administration executive order that purportedly targets “illegal DEI and DEIA policies.” Importantly, the coalition’s guidance informs companies that efforts to seek and support diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible workplaces remain lawful.
Raoul and a coalition of attorneys general filed an amicus brief supporting federal labor unions’ motion to pause the government’s so-called “Fork in the Road” directive. The directive, emailed to federal employees in late January 2025, forced them to choose whether to resign before an arbitrary 10-day deadline to keep their pay and benefits until September 30, 2025, or keep working under an implicit threat that their positions could be eliminated. Raoul and fellow attorneys general also filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to the U.S. Department of Labor’s unlawful termination of the Job Corps residential career training program.
Attorney General Raoul encourages workers who wish to file a complaint about an employer’s potentially unlawful practices to call the Workplace Rights Hotline at 1-844-740-5076 or visit the Attorney General’s website.
