Employer Financial Fraud?!!

Looking for advice on how to best proceed. It was recently discovered by an employee that our company had been deducting our IRA contributions from our paychecks, but not actually depositing it into our IRA accounts. They also withheld their promised company matching contribution. This occured for 6 months. After being confronted, the owners of the company, along with HR, explained it away as "administrator error" which seems HIGHLY unlikely. The company had been having budget and cash flow issues for 2+ years.

They have promised to repay the funds including lost interest but trust is lost and it feels insane that the same people who made the "error" are now charged with fixing the problem.

My question is what steps should the employees take to protect themselves. Hire a lawyer? Insist the company use a third party CPA to correct the issue? Turn the company in to the IRS/DOL?