CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – The owner of a Lynbrook grocery store believed they could ignore requests from the U.S. Department of Labor and a federal court in New York to cooperate with an investigation of their company’s pay practices. 

When the U.S. Marshals Service arrested and took Joseph Rossi into custody on Dec. 5, 2023, for repeatedly failing to provide information to the department’s Wage and Hour Division as part of a compliance investigation, the owner of Cross Island Fruits found out how wrong this belief was.

“Joseph Rossi now knows that refusing to comply with a federal investigation can have significant consequences, including arrest,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Jeffrey S. Rogoff in New York. “Rossi’s arrest shows the U.S. Department of Labor is committed to using every available and appropriate legal tool to gather the facts, enforce the law and make sure employers do not hold the law in contempt.”

Although the department issued an administrative subpoena to obtain documents to determine if the pay practices of Rossi’s business complied with the Fair Labor Standards Act,  the employer refused repeatedly to supply the subpoenaed documents. In response, the department’s Office of the Solicitor took the following actions in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York:

• Obtained a court order finding the store’s owner in contempt and assessing $250 per day in fines until they complied.
• Obtained a Nov. 17, 2023, court order for the U.S. Marshals to arrest Rossi and detain him until the court orders discharge from custody. 

“The Wage and Hour Division must have access to an employer’s records to determine if their pay practices and employment operations comply with federal law,” explained Wage and Hour Division Regional Administrator Mark Watson Jr. in Philadelphia.  “Employers cannot avoid their legal responsibilities by refusing to cooperate with investigators and withholding records they request.”

Cross Island Fruits is a grocery store located at 246 Hempstead Ave. in Lynbrook, New York.

The FLSA requires that most employees in the U.S. be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime pay at not less than time and one-half the required rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek.

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division. Employers and workers can call the division confidentially with questions regardless of where they are from. The department can speak with callers confidentially in more than 200 languages through the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for iOS and Android devices to ensure hours and pay are accurate.

Employer name:                               Chief’s Place Pizza Restaurant Inc. doing business as Chief’s Place

Investigation site:                             348 Village St., Concord, NH 03303

Investigation findings:                      U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators found the owner of a Concord restaurant kept employees’ earned tips and did not distribute them to the workers, as required by the tips provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Investigators also determined the employer violated child labor regulations by allowing a 14-year-old minor to work after 7 p.m. between Labor Day and June 1 and more than 3 hours on a school day.

Monies recovered for workers:       $133,075 in tips for 34 employees

                                                            $133,075 in liquidated damages for 34 employees

Civil money penalties:                      $3,395 for the tip and child labor violations

Quote:                                                “The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits employers from keeping any portion of an employee’s tips for any purpose. Withholding them is illegal and makes it harder for workers and their families to make ends meet,” said Wage and Hour District Director Steven McKinney in Manchester, New Hampshire. “Employers can avoid costly violations like those in this case by making sure their pay practices comply with federal law. We encourage them to contact us to discuss questions they may have relative to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s wage and tip-related requirements.”

Additional information:                   Workers can use the division’s Workers Owed Wages search tool to check to see if they are owed back wages collected by the division. Employers and workers can contact the Wage and Hour Division at its toll-free number, 1-866-4-US-WAGE. 

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including the agency’s restaurants compliance assistance toolkit and an overview about the FLSA protections for restaurant workers. Workers and employers alike can help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android and IOS Timesheet App for free in English or Spanish.  

WASHINGTON – As the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and Office of the Solicitor continue to find serious illegal employment practices in the meat and poultry processing industries, a California poultry processor and supplier to supermarkets and food distributors — including Ralphs, ALDI, Grocery Outlet and SYSCO Corp. — has agreed to pay nearly $3.8 million in back wages, damages and penalties after the department found the company endangered young workers recklessly in Southern California.

Division investigators found that The Exclusive Poultry Inc. and related companies established by owner Tony Bran employed children as young as 14 years old to debone poultry using sharp knives and operate power-driven lifts to move pallets. The children also worked excessive hours in violation of federal child labor regulations. The company also retaliated against employees for cooperating with investigators by cutting their wages.

Bran and The Exclusive Poultry are subject to a consent judgment entered by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Nov. 16, 2023, after an investigation and litigation by the department. The investigation included two poultry plants controlled by Bran in City of Industry and La Puente, California.  Investigators found that Bran set up several front companies to employ workers at these plants. Those front companies were Meza Poultry LLC, Valtierra Poultry LLC, Sullon Poultry Inc. and Nollus’s Poultry LLC. The department has also obtained consent judgments against these companies and their owners. 

The judgments resolve the lawsuit filed by the department based on the division’s findings that, in addition to their unlawful employment of children and retaliation against workers, the employers failed to pay workers their required wages.

Specifically, the division determined that Bran, The Exclusive Poultry and their associated companies willfully failed to pay required overtime wages to their employees, paying them either a piece rate or a straight time hourly rate even when they worked 50 or 60 hours per week. Investigators also found the employers failed to maintain required records when they intentionally omitted workers from payroll records.

Upon substantiating the child labor and overtime violations, the department’s Office of the Solicitor obtained from the U.S. District Court a temporary restraining order and an injunction to prevent Bran and The Exclusive Poultry from shipping into commerce any “hot goods,” in this case, poultry produced in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and any goods from a location where the department observed child labor. 

“The department will not hesitate to invoke the hot goods provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act — including perishable goods — to combat the scourges of wage theft and child labor in our economy,” said Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda. “Employers who violate the FLSA and their downstream distributors and customers should be on notice that we will use all tools at our disposal to protect workers, regardless of age and immigration status. We encourage workers to come forward and report employers that withhold workers’ wages or put their safety at risk.” 

As directed by the consent judgment, Bran and The Exclusive Poultry must pay $3.5 million in back wages and damages to affected workers. Of that total, $300,000 in punitive damages and $100,614 in back wages will be paid to workers who faced retaliatory conduct. In addition, the employers must pay $201,104 in civil money penalties assessed by the division for the child labor and willful violations.

The judgment also requires Bran and The Exclusive Poultry to retain a monitor for three years to ensure future compliance and to show a hiring preference for those workers they fired following the department’s search of the poultry plants. Under that preference, Bran and The Exclusive Poultry must offer these workers employment first before hiring others. 

“The Exclusive Poultry and owner Tony Bran willfully withheld workers’ hard-earned wages, endangered young workers and retaliated against employees to conceal their wrongdoing,” explained Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman. “The Wage and Hour Division will continue to work at every level of the industry to prevent employers or retailers from exploiting workers, including children, for profit.”

The Exclusive Poultry supplies poultry products to distributors who sell chicken products to, among others, Grocery Outlet, SYSCO Corp., ALDI, Nestle Purina, Royal Canin U.S.A. Inc. and Ralphs Grocery Company, a subsidiary of The Kroger Company. 

Downstream distributors and customers such as these can take steps to clean up the industry and protect themselves from potential liability by requiring written assurance from producers, manufacturers and other dealers that the goods being produced and purchased by them have been made in compliance with the requirements of the FLSA.

The division’s West Covina District Office conducted the investigation and the department’s Office of the Solicitor in Los Angeles filed the complaint and secured the consent judgments. In conducting the enforcement action, the department worked with the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs and its community partners, who provided support services to workers, and with the U.S. Marshals, who assisted with the execution of a search warrant at the two poultry processing plants.

The department is seeking any current or former employees of The Exclusive Poultry, Meza Poultry, Valtierra Poultry, Sullon Poultry or Nollus’s Poultry who believe they may be owed back wages. These employees should contact the West Covina District Office at (626) 966-0478.

The consent judgment is part of the department’s ongoing effort to combat child labor abuses and wage theft in the poultry and meat processing industries. The action follows the division’s investigation of Packers Sanitation Services Inc. and its assessment of $1.5 million in penalties for child labor violations in February 2023. In that case, investigators discovered that the company employed at least 102 children – from 13 to 17 years of age – in dangerous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states. 

In March 2023, the department recovered $353,141 in back wages for 322 workers in Alabama and North Carolina who were denied overtime wages. Between 2020 and 2023, the department obtained judgments against three La Puente poultry processing companies requiring them to pay more than $1.2 million for denying overtime wages to 113 workers deliberately and using intimidation to hide their wage thefts. Investigators are also probing into the death of a 16-year-old worker at a Mississippi poultry plant. 

Child labor laws exist to safeguard young workers from workplace exploitation and prevent avoidable tragedies. The U.S. Department of Labor and its partners from the Interagency Task Force to Combat Child Labor Exploitation remain committed to holding companies accountable for violating federal child labor laws.

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division. Workers can call the division confidentially with questions or concerns – regardless of where they are from – and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages. Help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android and iOS Timesheet App for free in English or Spanish.

Lea en Español 

DETROIT, MI – A federal court has ordered the owner of a Michigan senior home care services company be imprisoned if she continues to ignore a March 2023 federal court order to provide U.S. Department of Labor investigators with time and pay records, despite being in contempt of court since Sept. 27, 2023, and assessed $250 for each day she refused to comply. 

On Nov. 28, 2023, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Leitman of the Eastern District of Michigan directed the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest Rosie Guthrie, owner of Genesis Homecare Services, and that she be held until the requested records are provided. 

The action is the latest step in litigation filed by the department in federal court in November 2022 after Guthrie refused to comply repeatedly with the department’s Wage and Hour Division requests for documents needed for an investigation opened in 2022. The court ordered Guthrie and Genesis Homecare Services to comply with the department’s administrative subpoena on March 15, 2023. 

“The court has upheld the U.S. Department of Labor’s authority to investigate and obtain information about wages, hours and other employment practices and question employees to determine if an employer is complying with federal law. The court has ordered Rosie Guthrie confined until she complies with the court’s orders and produces the documents that will allow the department to complete its compliance review,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Christine Heri in Chicago. “Complying with administrative subpoenas issued by the department is not optional, and the department will pursue all avenues to enforce the law.”

The arrest warrant issued by the court orders Guthrie be held until she cooperates.

“The opening of a Wage and Hour Division investigation does not mean we will find violations. By refusing to cooperate, Rosie Guthrie now faces imprisonment,” said Regional Wage and Hour Administrator Michael Lazzeri in Chicago. “Our investigation of Genesis Homecare Services is part of our broader focus on the home care staffing industry — one in which we often identify violations — to protect the rights of women and people in marginalized communities employed in the industry who depend on every dollar they earn.”

In 2022, the Wage and Hour Division recovered $14.9 million in back wages for healthcare employees nationwide. As the aging U.S. population grows, employment in healthcare support occupations is projected to grow 15 percent from 2022 to 2032 – faster than the average for all occupations. 

Genesis Homecare Services provides home care staffing needs to assist seniors and others with limited mobility to live independently in their homes by providing home care services. The company serves the greater Detroit area including Wayne, Lower Oakland, Macomb and Montgomery counties.

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division.

Su v. Rosie Guthrie, Genesis Homecare Services LLC

Case No. 2:22-mc-51667-MFL-APP

OCONOMOWOC, WI – A U.S. Department of Labor investigation has found 21 construction companies working on a federally assisted construction project violated federal laws, leading to the recovery of more than $1.2 million in prevailing and overtime wages for 142 construction workers who built a 302-unit housing development in Oconomowoc.

The Wage and Hour Division investigated the Pabst Farm housing development project, which is insured by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is subject to the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. The DBRA requires that workers on federally assisted construction projects are paid not less than local prevailing wages. 

The division found the prime contractor for the project, McShane Construction Company LLC of Rosemont, Illinois, violated the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts by failing to provide subcontractors with accurate information on wage rates to pay workers in certain job classifications. 

The division investigated a total of 23 subcontractors on the project. Investigations of 13 of these subcontractors resulted in the recovery of $1.2 million in prevailing wages and an additional $30,472 in overtime back wages for 142 workers. 

“Our recovery of an average of $8,694 per worker will benefit these workers and their families financially and make a positive economic impact in their communities,” explained Wage and Hour Division Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri in Chicago. “Employers on a federally funded project must comply with all federal guidelines for prevailing wages and benefits.”

The division recovered wages from the following companies: 

In addition to enforcing against violations of the DBRA, the division is conducting extensive outreach on prevailing wage compliance in coordination with HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards. The agencies provide outreach and training to employers through the Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Builders Association, Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin and the National Association of Minority Contractors-Wisconsin Chapter. They will reach workers through advocacy groups such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers program, Voces De La Frontera, Workers for Justice Wisconsin and through the Mexican Consulate in Milwaukee. 

“Unfortunately, we often see violations in the construction industry related to employee misclassification, prevailing wages, overtime pay and the use of subcontractors and laborers who may not understand their rights,” explained Wage and Hour Division District Director Kristin Tout in Minneapolis, whose office conducted the investigations. “The payment of Davis‐Bacon prevailing wages reduces pay discrimination in construction, provides workers with fair wages and better benefits, and promotes economic prosperity in the region.”

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division and how to file an online complaint. For confidential compliance assistance, employees and employers can call the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243), regardless of where they are from.

Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for iOS and Android devices – also available in Spanish – to ensure hours and pay are accurate.

COLUMBIA, SC – A U.S. Department of Labor investigation has recovered $139,975 in back wages from a Spartanburg home healthcare provider that wrongly exempted 29 employees from overtime and failed to pay them proper wages in violation of federal regulations.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division investigators found Apella Health Management, operating as Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, listed some occupational therapy and physical therapy assistants as overtime exempt and paid them on a per-visit rate when, in fact, they did not meet the duties test for learned professionals. By doing so, the employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not paying the additional half-time rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. Apella Health also failed to maintain records of hours worked by the affected workers. 

“To use the ‘learned professional employee’ overtime exemption, employers must meet several criteria and cannot apply the criteria randomly,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Jamie Benefiel in Columbia, South Carolina. “The Department of Labor is determined to protect the rights of the nation’s care workers, people who provide vital services to those in need and who deserve to be paid all of their legal wages and benefits in return for their hard work.”

In fiscal year 2022, the division concluded more than 1,100 investigations in healthcare industries. These investigations recovered nearly $15 million in back wages for more than 22,000 workers.

Apella Health Management, a non-profit management company, became part of Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System in 2018. The system has 157 locations throughout northern South Carolina and employs 10,000 employees throughout its medical facilities.

Get more information on how the Wage and Hour Division is focused on improving compliance by residential care, nursing facilities, home health services and other care-focused industry employers by protecting workers’ rights nationwide.  

Workers and employers can contact the division confidentially at its toll-free number, 1-866-4-US-WAGE (487-9243). The division also offers online resources for employers, such as a fact sheet on Fair Labor Standards Act overtime requirements. Workers and employers alike can help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android or iOS Timesheet App for free in English and Spanish. Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division.

Employers:    Poros Inc., operating as Bentley’s Pancake House

Pete and Stavroula Giafis,owners 

Actions:          Fair Labor Standards Act consent order and judgment

Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

Investigation findings: On Nov. 17, 2023, Judge Mary M. Rowland entered an agreed consent order and judgment requiring Poros Inc. – operating as Bentley’s Pancake House — and its owners, Pete and Stavroula Giafis to pay a total of $110,000 in tip violations, overtime back wages and liquidated damages to 28 workers. The Bloomingdale restaurant must also pay $13,000 in civil money penalties for willful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In a March 27, 2023 summary judgment, the court ordered the payment of the $52,600 for the tip violations. The consent judgment directs payment of an additional $57,600 in overtime back wages and liquidated damages. 

After an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, the department’s Office of the Solicitor filed a complaint alleging the restaurant and its owners unlawfully kept servers’ tips, paid kitchen staff at their regular rates for hours over 40 in a workweek (instead of the legally required time and a half) and failed to keep accurate pay records from at least Feb. 5, 2018 to Feb. 2, 2022, also an FLSA violation. 

As part of the consent judgment, the company and its owners must also end their practice of partial cash payments and provide employees with checks and payroll stubs showing hours worked, rates-of-pay and withholdings. The court also ordered them not to violate the FLSA in the future.

Quote: “Historically, the restaurant industry employs low-paid workers and for these employees each dollar earned is significant to them and their family’s economic survival,” said Wage and Hour District Director Tom Gauza in Chicago. “Every worker deserves to be paid for hours they work and the overtime they earned. Employers must know the wage laws that apply to their employees and pay them accordingly.”

Background: Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, rules for restaurant workers, a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division and how to file an online complaint. For confidential compliance assistance, employees and employers can call the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243), regardless of where they are from.

Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for iOS and Android devices – also available in Spanish – to ensure hours and pay are accurate.

United States Department of Labor v. Poros Inc. – operating as Bentley’s Pancake House - Pete and Stavroula Giafis

Civil Action No. 1:21-cv-01944

Read this news release En Español. 

RALEIGH, NC – The U.S. Department of Labor assessed two North Carolina employers $139,039 in penalties after its investigation found they victimized non-immigrant farmworkers by shortchanging 65 workers’ wages, and by trying to intimidate and seizing their passports.

The workers were employed through the federal H-2A program, which enables agricultural employers to hire temporary non-immigrant workers to meet business demands while not adversely affecting wages and working conditions of similarly employed people working in the U.S.

Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found that McClenny Farms Inc. of Mount Olive received a contract to recruit, hire, house and transport H-2A workers to harvest cucumbers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco and watermelons in Wayne County, North Carolina. During its investigations, the agency discovered Francisco Valadez Jr. of Smithfield — debarred for two years by the department in 2020 for violating H-2A regulations — was operating the contract on McClenny Farms’ behalf.

The division determined that McClenny Farms and Valadez were acting as joint employers, sharing responsibility for the violations and the assessed penalties.

“McClenny Farms and Francisco Valadez Jr. took advantage of dozens of workers recruited to do the physically demanding work of picking produce and tobacco on farms in Wayne County,” explained Wage and Hour Division District Director Richard Blaylock in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Our investigations found these employers violated their legal obligations and preyed on people who traveled to the U.S. for better-paying work simply to support themselves and their families back home.”

Specifically, division investigators found the employers violated H-2A regulations by doing the following:

• Not reimbursing workers for visa and application fees, and for inbound transportation expenses to the work site and instead requiring them to sign receipts without receiving pay. 
• Failing to have accurate records, including earnings, hours statements and reasons for pay deductions. 
• Not satisfying the job order’s requirements by failing to state actual terms and conditions, such as establishing a fixed worksite.
• Permitting unlawful cost-shifting by using a bus driver who demanded workers pay $150 each before getting on the bus.
• Failing to pay the required wage rates by paying $8 per hour in cash instead of $13.15 per hour, as stated in the work contract.
• Trying to discriminate and intimidate workers by confiscating their passports and visas upon arrival at the farm to restrict their ability to leave when the employers failed to pay full wages.

In addition, investigators determined the employers violated federal minimum wage provisions when they failed to pay workers at least the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25 per hour during their first week of employment by assessing workers inbound transportation expenses. They also denied the workers any pay for the first week of their employment, leaving them a week behind the wages promised in the contract.

“These employers’ actions are shocking,” Blaylock added. “In addition to committing wage theft, McClenny Farms and Valadez frightened workers and took personal documents to prevent them from leaving farms, acts of intimidation that we will punish as the law allows.” 

In addition to assessing civil money penalties, the division recovered $97,100 in back wages for the workers and debarred Francisco Valadez Jr. as an individual from participation in the H-2A program for two years. 

In fiscal year 2022, the Wage and Hour Division recovered more than $5.8 million in back wages for 8,260 workers employed in the agricultural industry. After 879 investigations, the division assessed employers more than $7.9 million in civil money penalties for violations of federal laws.

The division offers farmworker rights information, compliance assistance resources for employers and an agriculture compliance assistance toolkit to ensure compliance with the law. The federal government can temporarily ban, or debar, employers from hiring H-2A workers or from participating in the program altogether for a period of up to three years.

Employees and employers can also contact the Wage and Hour Division at its toll-free number, 1-866-4-US-WAGE (487-9243). Workers can call the division confidentially with questions – regardless of where they are from – and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages. Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division. Workers and employers alike can help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android and iOS Timesheet App – now available in Spanish – for free. 

LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $481,357 from a Burbank paint and wall covering company who shortchanged 117 workers by failing to pay required overtime wages and then told federal investigators repeatedly that the employees had not worked overtime hours.

Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found The Rodin Group employees worked on weekends routinely and, on occasion, worked double shifts on weekdays to exceed 40 hours in a workweek. The division determined employees’ weekly overtime ranged from 30 minutes to 72 hours.

In addition, the division learned the employers paid overtime hours in cash routinely and they did not record or pay employees for required hours spent in travel and replenishing supplies. The employers’ willful violations led the department to assess The Rodin Group with $55,042 in civil money penalties.

“Our investigation found The Rodin Group deliberately tried to deny more than 100 employees their hard-earned wages, including overtime wages when some employees worked as many as 72 hours of overtime,” said Wage and Hour Division Assistant District Director Francisco Ocampo in Los Angeles. “The employers have learned that misleading investigators will not be tolerated and that willful violations can lead to significant damages and civil money penalties.” 

The employers’ actions violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Rodin Group in Burbank is a commercial painting and wall covering company, providing services in the Los Angeles area, including clients in San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange counties. 

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division. Employers and workers can call the division confidentially with questions, regardless of their immigration status. The department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages through the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android and iOS Timesheet App for free on any mobile device, also available in Spanish.

This news release is also available in Spanish.

Employer:      Urban Air Tutwiler LLC, operating as Urban Air Trussville

                        3695 Roosevelt Blvd.

                        Birmingham, AL 35235

Investigation findings: U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators found the Birmingham indoor adventure park allowed 36 minor-aged employees, under 16 years old, to work after 7 p.m. on a school night, after 9 p.m. in the summer, more than 3 hours on school days and more than 18 hours a week during a school week, all violations of the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The division also found the employer failed to include a worker’s bonus in overtime pay calculation, an FLSA overtime violation. 

Civil money penalties assessed:       $28,476 to address child labor violations

Back wages owed to workers:          $145 to one worker

Quote: “The significant increase in child labor violations nationwide is troubling,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Kenneth Stripling in Birmingham, Alabama. “Here in the Southeast and across the nation, the Department of Labor is committed to making sure young workers can experience the world of work without jeopardizing their safety or education by enforcing the laws that protect them.

Background: In February 2023, the agency found a Jacksonville, Florida-based Urban Air location also in violation of child labor laws when it allowed 55 minor-aged employees, 14- and 15-years old, to work after 7 p.m. on a school night. The agency assessed the employer $43,505 in civil money penalties in that case.

Employers can contact the Wage and Hour Division at its toll-free number, 866-4-US-WAGE. Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including information about protections for young workers on the department’s YouthRules! website.

Workers can call the Wage and Hour Division confidentially with questions and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages. Workers and employers alike can help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android and iOS Timesheet App for free, which is available in English and Spanish.