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 GLARUS, Wis. – After five employees became ill from carbon monoxide exposure as they renovated a New Glarus nursing home, federal safety inspectors responding to the scene found their employer also exposed the workers to asbestos hazards.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against the fiduciaries of a Virginia-based employee stock ownership plan, alleging the defendants failed to protect the assets of the plan as it purchased nearly $21 million in company shares from the president of Sentry Equipment Erectors Inc. who was also a trustee of the ESOP.

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.

COLUMBUS, Ohio ‒ The absence of fall protection equipment exposed six temporary employees to falls of up to 60 feet as they welded and attached steel braces on a commercial construction site in Columbus. A dangerous oversight given that falls account for nearly 40 percent of work-related fatalities – the construction industry’s leading cause of death.

Employer name: Panama City Framing LLC

Inspection site: 3750 Cedar Park Lane
Panama City, Florida 32404

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.

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.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Had proper precautions been taken, a 34-year-old tree trimmer would not have been fatally electrocuted when an aluminum pole saw made contact with overhead power lines, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has found.

Anthony Robert Donahue was strapped to a tree approximately 18 feet in the air and working at a private residence on Bay View Drive in Fort Lauderdale on April 25, 2016, when the incident occurred.

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.

Date of Action: Oct. 5, 2016

Type of Action: Filing of lawsuit

Name of Defendants: Bailey Picker Repair
Burley Glenn Bailey, owner and manager

Type of Action: Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit filing

Names of Defendant(s): ARS Ohio LLC
Gary C. (“Chris”) Finn
Karen Finn

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. – A Pennsylvania masonry company terminated a plant manager – less than two weeks after it hired him – after the manager repeatedly reported air quality and other safety and health hazards to upper management at the company's Middletown plant in 2014. 

Employer name: Quick Carpentry Inc.
4501 Bleigh Avenue, Apt. A
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Inspection site: 258 Gordon Road, Lot 8
Robbinsville, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 26, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the company citations for two repeat and seven serious violations.

Employer Name: PPG Industries
3150 Pete Manena Road
Westlake, Louisiana

Citations Issued: Oct. 11, 2016

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has announced a $5 million cooperative agreement to reduce child labor in rural Zambia among adolescent girls, ages 15-17, by increasing access to quality formal and non-formal education and training.

Date of Action: Oct. 3, 2016

Type of Action: Filing of lawsuit

Name of Defendants: Solid Drywall LLC
Solid Construction Group LLC
Frank LeBaron

In the week ending October 8, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 246,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 3,000 from 249,000 to 246,000. The 4-week moving average was 249,250, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since November 3, 1973 when it was 244,000. The previous week's average was revised down by 750 from 253,500 to 252,750.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. ‒ Five seconds is all it takes for flowing grain to engulf and trap a worker. In 60 seconds, the worker is submerged and is in serious danger of death by suffocation. More than half of all workers engulfed in grain die this way. Many others suffer permanent disability.

Employer name: Home Live Roofing LLC
936 East Calloway Roadbr> Marietta, Georgia

Inspection site:2101-2104 Jefferson on-the-Creek
Warminster, Pennsylvania

Citations issued: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the company one willful, two repeat and one serious safety violations on Sept. 29, 2016.