MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota-based company has agreed to pay 15,909 employees nationwide a total of $976,765 – $488,229 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages – after a federal investigation found the employer violated federal minimum wage requirements at its health clubs and fitness center locations in 26 states.

Date of Action: Nov. 28, 2016

Type of Action: Family and Medical Leave Act complaint

Name of Defendants: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital

Employer name: Environmental Painting Alternatives Inc.     

Investigation site: 1130 S. Rio Grande Ave.
Orlando, Florida 32805        

Date of Action: Nov. 22, 2016

Type of Action: Lawsuit settlement and entry of judgment and injunction

Name of Defendant: Han Nara Enterprises L.P.
Lubbock, Texas

Date of Action: Nov. 15, 2016

Type of Action: Consent judgment

Name of Defendants: Puerto Rico Police Department
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

NEW YORK – Sixty-three workers employed on the federally funded reconstruction of Chambers Street between Broadway and West St. in Lower Manhattan will receive a total of $1,190,861 in back wages following an investigation and litigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, in keeping with a consent order  approved by the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.

Employer name: Windy City Doc Holding LLC, doing business as Metro Diner

Investigation site: 1534 North 3^rd St.
Jacksonville, Florida 32250

Employer: Good Shepherd Home Inc., a residential care facility doing business as Good Shepherd Home, with locations in Shoreline, Washington

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OAKDALE, Minn. – A Minnesota company that provided cable equipment recovery services to leading cable providers such as Comcast, Time Warner and Charter Communications, will pay $350,000 to drivers and market contractors misclassified as independent contractors to resolve a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit.  

Employer name: Ravago Americas LLC

Investigation site: 1900 Summit Blvd., #900
Orlando, Florida 32810

Type of Action: Fair Labor Standards Act consent judgment

Names of Defendants: T. R. Timber Company
Tony M. Rosenbrugh

Findings: An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that T.R. Timber Company and its majority owner, Tony M. Rosenbrugh, failed to pay truck drivers and hourly employees overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a work week in violation of the FLSA.

Date of Action: Oct. 27, 2016

Type of Action: Lawsuit

Name of Defendants: Five Oaks Achievement Center LLC
Whispering Hills Achievement Center LLC
North Fork Educational Center LLC

Employer name: Universal Fire Systems Inc.  

Investigation site: 374 Hobbs Road
Tampa, Florida 33619

Investigation findings: Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer violated overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a hotline available for nearly 700 U.S. Senate cafeteria food service workers owed back wages by their employers. The hotline will provide workers who prepare and serve meals to Capitol Hill lawmakers and their staffs with updates on the status of back wage payments owed to them.

Employers: Cumulus Inc.
ThunderCloud Inc.

Site: Several locations in Austin, Texas

PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is conducting a building construction survey in Connecticut to collect data on wages paid to workers to help establish prevailing wage rates, as required under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts.

The survey includes wages paid on all building construction projects between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016. It is not limited to federally funded construction projects.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The U.S. Department of Labor requested that a federal judge approve a consent judgment requiring the Puerto Rico Police Department to pay $8,732,386 in back wages and interest to 2,642 current and former police officers who did not receive all their overtime wages required under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

NEW ORLEANS – Two U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigations found that a nursing care operator with multiple southern Louisiana facilities violated the minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

BOSTON — The U.S. Department of Labor is suing a Gloucester seafood processing, packing and distribution business; a Lowell temporary employment agency and payroll service that supplies temporary workers exclusively to the business, and their respective owners, for underpaying 55 vulnerable low-wage workers, falsifying records and taking improper payroll deductions from some of the employees.

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is conducting a residential construction survey in the state of Alaska. The division is currently collecting data on all residential construction projects active between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016 statewide. The survey is not limited only to federally funded construction projects.