A single unannounced stop at a Marshalls on White Plains Road in the Bronx has triggered a $674,526 back-wage payout to 7,577 employees across roughly 185 T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods locations statewide. The New York State Department of Labor says the investigation, which began in April 2023, uncovered potential violations of the state's spread-of-hours rule affecting workers who clocked long shifts without the extra pay they were owed.
State investigators opened their inquiry after that Bronx visit, according to WRGB, and from there the probe expanded to cover TJX's footprint across New York. The department proposed that TJX conduct a comprehensive self-audit of its New York stores, and that audit ultimately covered the period from August 2020 through August 2023.
New York labor law requires that employees whose workday spans more than 10 hours receive an additional hour of pay at the basic minimum wage rate — the so-called spread-of-hours rule at the center of this case. That requirement traces back to Part 142 of Title 12 of New York's Official Compilation of Codes, Rules, and Regulations, which the state's Department of Labor identifies as the Minimum Wage Order for Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations.
Individual Payments Topped $4,600
The self-audit resulted in $674,526 in back wages distributed across 7,577 employees, with individual payments reaching as high as $4,686, the station's report notes. TJX cooperated fully with the investigation and provided the records the department requested, according to the same account.
TJX, formally The TJX Companies, Inc., owns T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods and also operates Homesense and Sierra stores. The affected employees worked across approximately 185 TJX locations spread throughout New York State, meaning the violations were not confined to the single Bronx store where investigators first took notice.
Commissioner Credits Investigators and TJX's Cooperation
Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon thanked investigators for their meticulous work and credited TJX for its prompt cooperation once the self-audit was underway. “New York is committed to ensuring workers receive the wages they're owed,” Reardon said, per the department's account relayed through the station's reporting.
This case is part of a broader enforcement push. The department says it recovered more than $35 million in unpaid wages in 2025 alone, on top of collecting $2.2 million in penalties tied to wage theft cases that year. Since 2021, the agency reports recovering and returning more than $130 million to nearly 125,000 workers statewide — a scale the TJX settlement folds into without standing apart from.
How Workers Can Check Their Own Pay
Workers who believe they are owed unpaid wages can file a complaint directly through the New York State Department of Labor website, which outlines the process for pursuing unpaid or withheld wages and wage supplements. The department has pointed to updated enforcement tools — including mediations, levies, subpoenas and firmer deadlines — as part of what has driven its recent wage-recovery totals. A separate case earlier this year saw the department recover over $191,000 in unpaid wages for 93 employees at Buffalo-based Magellan Technology/Demand Vape, an example of the kind of smaller-scale actions the agency runs alongside larger investigations like the TJX case.
