TAMPA, FL – A Florida labor contractor is headed to prison for nearly 10 years after a U.S. Department of Labor and multi-agency investigation into his part in a conspiracy to subject migrant farmworkers to forced labor, obstruct investigators, intimidate witnesses and house workers in unsafe and unhealthy living conditions.   

DENVER - El Departamento de Trabajo de EE. UU. ha recuperado $203,332 en salarios atrasados después de que se descubriera por una investigación que una empresa de paisajismo de Denver, propiedad de un padre e hijo (Fermin y Roberto Daniel Guardado), negó los salarios por horas extras a 14 trabajadores y no mantuvo registros completos según requiere la ley.

Empleador:                            Armando’s Mexican Restaurant LLC

Lugar de investigación:        5792 Memorial Blvd.
Saint George, South Carolina 29477

Date of Action: Jan. 18, 2023 

Type of Action: Fair Labor Standards Act consent judgement

Defendants: Maya Restaurant Inc. operating as Maya Mexican Restaurant, Rigoberto Cobain 

DENVER – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $203,332 in back wages after an investigation found a Denver landscaping company owned by a father and son – Fermin and Roberto Daniel Guardado – denied overtime wages to 14 workers, and failed to keep complete records as the law requires.

The department also barred the company from hiring H-2B workers for five years for its violations of the H-2B worker program.

Employer:                                   Armando’s Mexican Restaurant LLC

Investigation site:                  5792 Memorial Blvd.
                                                         Saint George, South Carolina 29477

LAS VEGAS – After a 2013 investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor that recovered $47,393 from a Nevada paint and specialty coatings contractor and its owner whose illegal pay practices denied 21 Utah workers overtime wages, a reasonable employer might try to avoid repeating a bad and costly decision.

Cory Summerhays, owner of Unforgettable Coatings Inc. – a Las Vegas company operating in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Utah – chose instead to double down, and then some. 

AURORA, IL – While workers at a local supermarket stocked shelves, operated cash registers and served customers Mexican hot foods and baked goods, their Aurora employer was denying them their hard-earned overtime pay for two years, the U.S. Department of Labor recently found.

After its investigation, the department’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered a total of $399,851 in back wages and liquidated damages for 49 workers at Supermercado Carrera, a family-owned supermarket.

JOLIET, IL – Federal investigators have found a Joliet restaurant and catering company illegally employed 25 minor-aged workers as bussers, runners and dishwashers after 7 p.m. on school nights and 9 p.m. on weekends, and some more than 18 hours a week, and denied seven other workers overtime for hours over 40 in workweek.

AURORA, IL – El Departamento de Trabajo de EE.UU. descubrió recientemente que mientras que los trabajadores de un supermercado local de Aurora suplían estanterías, operaban cajas registradoras y servían a los clientes comidas y productos mexicanos, su empleador les negó durante dos años sus pagos por horas extra.

Employer:                  Senior Healthcare Advisors LLC

Investigation site:      816 S Military Trail

                                    Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

Employer:                              Heine Brothers Inc.

Investigation site:                  1301 W. Main St.

                                                Louisville, KY 40203

MANCHESTER, NH – A Manchester chimney services contractor has paid a total of $26,163 to three workers to resolve allegations that the employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s anti-retaliation provisions enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

PHOENIX – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $724,082 in back wages and damages for 255 employees of an electrical contractor in Phoenix who denied them overtime wages and falsified records.  

Employer:  Orlando Health Medical Group Inc. - Operating as Orlando Health Medical Group Urology

Investigation sites: 

303 E. Par St., Orlando, FL 32804 (Headquarters)

865 Oakley Seaver Drive, Clermont, FL 43711

392 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746

NEW YORK – The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting a Patterson nursery and garden supply business, and its president from threatening its employees and obstructing a U.S. Department of Labor investigation.

MINNEAPOLIS – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment in federal court requiring a Minneapolis private in-home care provider to pay $1.6 million in back wages and damages, as part of the department’s effort to recover unpaid overtime wages for 136 healthcare workers in the Twin-Cities area.

LITTLE ROCK, AR - Una investigación federal ha recuperado $39,436 en salarios atrasados para 23 trabajadores H-2A empleados por una desmontadora de Marvell, cuyo operador no cumplió con las protecciones de los trabajadores de la Ley de Normas Justas de Trabajo (FLSA por sus siglas en inglés).

LITTLE ROCK, AR – A federal investigation has recovered $39,436 in back wages for 23 H-2A workers employed by a Marvell cotton gin, whose operator failed to comply with worker protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

CARBONDALE, IL – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a federal court order requiring a Carbondale café to pay 31 workers $98,400 in back wages and damages for operating an illegal tip pool, almost six months after a jury awarded the workers $4,900 – just 10 percent of their back wages – in what the department alleged was an error based on the jury’s instructions and how they interpreted the evidence at trial.