ALGOOD, TN – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $42,373 for 44 employees after finding an Algood restaurant illegally kept tips that employees earned.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division found McCurdy Enterprises LLC – operating as Red Oak Roasters – withheld the tips and used that money to inflate hourly wages by dividing it among workers, including managers. Investigators also found Red Oak Roasters incorrectly classified a salaried employee as exempt from overtime. By doing so, the employer failed to pay overtime premiums to this employee for hours over 40 in a workweek.

“What Red Oak Roasters did is wage theft, plain and simple. Tips are the property of the employees who earn them and rewards them for providing good service to customers,” said Wage and Hour District Director Lisa Kelly in Nashville, Tennessee. “Employers have no right to keep those earned tips and use them to reduce their cost of doing business.”

In addition, the division found the employer allowed five minor-aged employees to engage in prohibited and hazardous activities by operating a vertical dough mixing machine, a violation of the federal child labor standards. The division assessed Red Oak Roasters a $9,900 civil penalty to address the child labor violations.

“In addition to wage theft, our investigators found alarming child labor violations,” Kelly added. “Power-driven bakery machines have the potential to cause serious injuries to even experienced workers. Allowing minor-aged workers – in this case 16 and 17-year-olds – to operate these machines is both troubling and illegal.”

Wage and Hour Division investigators recovered more than $27 million for more than 22,500 workers in the food service industry in fiscal year 2022. In fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the Wage and Hour Division’s Southeast region found child labor violations in more than 190 food service employers investigated, resulting in more than $1 million in penalties assessed to employers.

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including tip regulations under the FLSA and also a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division. Workers can call the Wage and Hour Division confidentially with questions – regardless of where they are from – and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages.

BIRMINGHAM, AL – Work in a poultry catching facility is hard, where people commonly face the risks of working with dangerous equipment, on slippery floors, around hazardous chemicals, and are exposed to the possibility of illness for those handling live birds and the waste and dust they produce. Standing for long hours also greatly increases the risks of musculoskeletal disorders.

At two poultry catching facilities in Alabama and North Carolina, the owner made work even more difficult for 322 employees by denying them their full earned wages, a U.S. Department of Labor investigation has found.

Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division determined that Native Poultry LLC in Enterprise, Alabama, and Poultry Labor Solutions Inc. in Newton, North Carolina – which share ownership – did not pay proper overtime wages at the additional half-time premium pay to employees working as catchers, loaders, and leads. They also found the employers only paid the proper overtime premium rates for weekend work and not when employees worked over 40 hours during the typical workweek. Their actions violated overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. These catching companies support the poultry growing and processing operations of Wayne Farms LLC, in Dothan, Alabama, and Case Farms LLC in Troutman, North Carolina.  

The division’s investigation recovered $353,141 in back wages for the affected workers whose annual mean wage for their occupation, a Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2021 survey found, ranges from $25,930 in Alabama to $31,640 in North Carolina.

“The workers in these cases handle an important step in food operations that is not mechanized, and their labor is essential to the industry,” said Regional Administrator Juan Coria in Atlanta, Georgia. “More than 100 birds can be processed by hand every 30 minutes so the teams employed there can face difficult conditions.”

“Employers like Native Poultry and Poultry Labor Solutions have a legal obligation to make sure their employees – people who help put food on our tables – are paid their full earned wages,” added Coria.

BLS estimates about 95,000 people work in animal slaughtering and processing industry in the U.S.

The Wage and Hour Division offers multiple tools to help employers understand their responsibilities and offers confidential compliance assistance to anyone with questions about how to comply with the law, by calling the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). The department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages. Visit the agency’s website to learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including tip regulations under the FLSA.

The agency also maintains a search tool to learn if you are owed back wages collected by the division. Help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android and iOS Timesheet App for free.

Learn more about Wage and Hour Division.

Read this news release En Español.

WASHINGTON – For women working in the U.S., the date of Equal Pay Day isn’t a day of celebration. Rather, the day is a reminder that it takes women 15 months to earn the same amount as men earned in 12 months.

Today is Equal Pay Day in 2023, a reminder of systemic inequality faced by women and especially those of color. In the U.S., women who work full-time, year-round, are paid an average of 83.7 percent as much as men, which amounts to a difference of $10,000 per year. The gaps are even larger for many women of color and women with disabilities.

“Equal Pay Day – the day of the year when women working in the U.S. finally earn the same amount as men did in the year before – is an unfortunate reminder that historic wage inequity continues,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. “The Biden-Harris administration has made unprecedented investments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and remains determined to remove barriers that prevent women from obtaining good-paying jobs found in the projects these investments will fund to help close the gender wage gap.”

The U.S. Department of Labor has several agency initiatives underway to combat gender and racial pay disparities in the workforce and ensure equity in the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Chips and Science and Inflation Reduction acts. They include the following:

• The launch of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ Mega Construction Project Program to foster equal opportunity in the construction trades workforce by removing hiring barriers and promoting diversity as qualified workers are considered for construction jobs. Read an OFCCP fact sheet to help employers take proactive approaches to pay equity.
• The Employment and Training Administration’s March 6, 2023, announcement of a cooperative agreement of nearly $20 million to support TradesFutures, the National Urban League and their community partners in developing a strategy to substantially increase the number of participants from underrepresented populations – including women and underserved communities – in Registered Apprenticeships in the construction industry. The effort will enroll more than 13,000 participants in apprenticeship readiness programs and place at least 7,000 participants in construction industry Registered Apprenticeships.
• Publication by the Women’s Bureau of a brief on the causes of the gender wage gap, including new statistics and analyses of gender and racial wage gaps, and a second brief on salary history bans legislation that prohibit employers from asking about prior salaries as a way to promote equal pay includes historic information on equal pay legislation and policymaking, salary history bans’ benefits and design and other policies for closing the gender wage gap.
• The ongoing Good Jobs Initiative provides tools with practical strategies to increase equal employment opportunities on infrastructure projects, including using Project Labor Agreements as Tools for Equity and establishing Access and Opportunity Committees, stakeholder groups that meet regularly to monitor and support diversity and equity goals on a specific project.

“To build an inclusive economy, we need to enable workers to obtain jobs based on their interests, skills and aptitude rather than gender, race or ethnicity, and promote good-paying jobs that follow fair wage setting practices, like those found in union employment, to help to eliminate the wage gap,” Acting Secretary Su added.

Learn more about Equal Pay and Pay Transparency Protections.

TAMPA, FL – A U.S. Department of Labor probe into how a Boca Grande resort used the federal H-2B program to employ guest visa workers for seasonal labor has recovered $151,598 in back wages for nine non-immigrant workers and led to $49,401 in civil money penalties for the resort.

The resort recently completed payment of the back wages and fines after it failed to provide documentation to support its February 2022 challenge of the findings of the department’s Wage and Hour Division. In November 2022, the employer entered into a consent agreement before the Office of Administrative Law Judges.

The resolution ends the division investigation that determined Gasparilla Inn & Club violated the temporary H-2B worker visa program by doing the following:

• Applied an uncertified job qualification, and applied their qualification arbitrarily, giving preference to less-qualified H-2B applicants.
• Imposed additional restrictions or obligations on U.S. workers and offered better working conditions to H-2B workers.
• Hired two workers for first-line job duties, but assigned them supervisory duties.
• Failed to reimburse visa fees to some workers, and made others wait years for their fees reimbursement.

“Federal law protects nonimmigrant workers employed under the H-2B program and Gasparilla Inn & Club violated those requirements,” said Wage and Hour District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff in Tampa, Florida. “All workers, both U.S. and non-immigrant workers, must be paid their lawful wages. Employers who reap the benefits of the H-2B program are obligated to make sure they understand and comply with program requirements.”

The federal H-2B visa program permits employers to temporarily hire nonimmigrants to perform nonagricultural labor or services in the U.S. The employment must be temporary in nature and be for a limited specific period of time, such as a one-time occurrence, seasonal, peak load or intermittent need.

Established in 1913, the Gasparilla Inn & Club is a resort located on Gasparilla Island on the Gulf of Mexico.

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the Wage and Hour Division, contact the division’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243).

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. Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for Android devices to ensure hours and pay are accurate.

Employer name:                    C & C Steel LLC                                    

Investigation site:                 8889 Gateway Blvd. W
                                                        El Paso, TX 79925             

Investigation findings: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer, a Helena, Alabama, construction contractor, paid its workers straight time for all hours worked and failed to pay overtime for hours over 40 in a workweek, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division also discovered the employer failed to pay an employee for one day of work which violated minimum wage provisions of the act.

Back wages recovered:  $23,116 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to 14 workers.                                              

Quote: “C & C Steel deprived 14 construction workers of their hard-earned wages, including overtime the employer should have paid,” said Wage Hour Division District Director Evelyn Ortiz in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Failing to pay workers properly can force them to choose between paying the rent and buying groceries. Workers depend on every dollar for which they worked.”

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ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Federal investigators have found that two St. Petersburg restaurants withheld tips earned by bartenders and servers to pay for customers who skipped out on their bills, illegally charged employees for uniforms and denied some workers required minimum wage and full overtime pay.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division determined the commonly owned businesses – Red Mesa Inc., operating as Red Mesa Restaurant, and Veytia Ventures LLC, operating as Red Mesa Cantina – violated several provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The division recovered $190,730 in back wages and liquidated damages for 89 affected workers as a result of its investigation.

Specifically, the division found the employers did the following:

• Withheld bartenders and servers’ tips to cover the cost of customer walkouts, which ranged from $10 to $175 per day.
• Deducted the cost of uniforms from employees’ wages which led some workers to be paid less than minimum wage.
• Paid an incorrect overtime rate to tipped employees and failed to combine hours when these employees worked at both restaurants in the same workweek. By doing so, the restaurants paid overtime at rates lower than required by law for hours over 40 in a workweek and failed to pay for all overtime hours in some workweeks.
• Paid kitchen staff straight time regardless of how many hours they worked. By doing so, the employer failed to pay them the additional half-time rate required for overtime hours.
• Failed to log workers’ hours in payroll records correctly which kept some workers off payroll records.

“By law, two or more establishments that are commonly owned are considered a single enterprise. In this case, the employer assigned employees to work at two locations they owned. They should have added the hours worked at these locations together and paid overtime when the combined hours exceeded 40 hours in the same workweek,” explained Wage and Hour District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff in Tampa, Florida. “Operating restaurants with the same owners under different corporate names does not remove that liability. Employers are responsible for understanding and complying with federal laws regarding pay practices.”

Wage and Hour Division investigators recovered more than $27 million for more than 22,500 workers in the food service industry in fiscal year 2022.

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 can call the Wage and Hour Division confidentially with questions – regardless of their immigration status – 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, also available in Spanish.

Read this news release En Español.

GLENDALE, AZ – The U.S. Department of Labor is currently distributing more than $700,000 in back wages and damages to 470 employees, recovered from a Glendale plastering company following an investigation and lawsuit related to the employer’s pay practices.

On Jan. 19, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona entered a consent judgment that requires Palo Verde Plastering Inc. to pay overtime back wages and liquidated damages to affected employees. The employer paid workers “by the yard,” denied them overtime and repeatedly told them they were not entitled to it and falsified their books by assigning wages earned to “phantom” employees to avoid paying overtime.

The action follows a 2021 investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that began with a review of the company’s payroll records. Palo Verde Plastering Inc. violated federal law by paying employees straight time for hours over 40 in a workweek that should have been paid an overtime premium rate. Investigators also found the company did not maintain accurate pay records, as required.

After their initial findings, investigators alleged that the employer agreed to pay hourly wages and overtime in November 2021, but then continued to violate the law until at least March 2022.

The court also affirmed $23,787 in civil money penalties assessed by the department to Palo Verde Plastering for its willful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“Palo Verde Plastering deliberately tried to evade the law by instructing employees that piece-rate employees are not owed overtime wages without regard to their hours worked, and then intentionally did not record all hours worked and wages earned to avoid paying overtime,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Eric Murray in Phoenix. “Employers who violate workers’ right to be paid their full wages may face costly consequences, including penalties for willful acts to cover-up their violations.”

The court order also requires Palo Verde to do the following:

• Change its payroll practices to comply with federal recordkeeping regulations.
• Update its timekeeping system and immediately comply with the FLSA.
• Hire a third party to conduct training for all of supervisors, managers and others with payroll duties on federal requirements.
• Amend its corporate handbook and provide FLSA information to all employees.

“Hundreds of workers – many who worked on new home construction in Maricopa County – will now receive unpaid wages and damages, ranging from $42 to more than $7,000 per worker. These rightfully earned wages will make a big impact in the daily lives of many,” Murray added. “The Wage and Hour Division encourages workers to contact us if they believe their employer is not paying them all of their earned wages.”

Current or former Palo Verde Plastering employees can contact the division’s Phoenix District Office confidentially and regardless of immigrations status for more information by phone at 602-407-5323, or email: whdvm.phoenixvwp@dol.gov.

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.

Walsh v. Palo Verde Plastering Inc.

U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona

CV-23-00098-PHX-SMM

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ALBANY, NY – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $166,832 for 53 employees of a Little Falls roofing contractor to resolve overtime and recordkeeping violations found by investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division.

Division investigators determined Lakeside Roofing & Contracting LLC – operating as Lakeside Kanga Roof – paid straight time for travel time and all hours over 40 in a workweek, did not record work hours accurately and failed to include commissions and bonuses when calculating hourly rates of pay for overtime, all violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The company also did not display a poster summarizing workers’ FLSA protections, as the law requires.

Kanga Roof’s owner told investigators that they didn't consider the workers to be independent contractors or employees because each worker “buys into” the company when hired and becomes a “member” of the corporation and, thus, weren't entitled to overtime. However, the investigation determined the workers to be company employees per the FLSA and entitled to the law’s protections.

“Paying employees straight-time rates for overtime hours worked and incorrectly calculating hourly rates of pay when determining wages deprive workers of the hard-earned wages they depend on to make ends meet,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Jay Rosenblum in Albany, New York. “Employers must know and comply with wage and hour laws that apply to their employees to ensure they are paid correctly.”

The division’s Rochester Field Office of the Albany District Office conducted the investigation.

For information about laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Workers can call the Wage and Hour Division confidentially with questions, regardless of where they are from, and the department can speak with callers in more than 200 languages.

The Wage and Hour Division has a number of resources online for workers and employers, including an FLSA compliance toolkit. 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.

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

Employer:                                   North Sunflower Medical Center

Investigation site:                  840 N. Oak Ave.

                                                          Ruleville, MS 38771

Investigation findings: Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer – a healthcare facility providing services to the Humphrey, Leflore and Sunflower tri-counties area – automatically deducted 30-minute lunch breaks from some employees’ hours without making sure they were free of work-related tasks and able to take the breaks. Investigators learned that, several times a week, some of the facility’s nurses need to work through lunch breaks to update patient records. By automatically deducting 30-minute lunch breaks, the employer failed to account for all the hours that the nurses worked, which led to violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime provisions.

The division also determined that North Sunflower Medical Center did not combine employees’ hours when they worked in different departments at the facility, and failed to use the total number of hours worked when calculating additional half-time rates owed to these employees. In addition, investigators found the employer failed to maintain an accurate record of hours worked for employees.

Back Wages Recovered: $201,436 for 110 workers.                                   

Quote: “Employers must combine all hours employees work at separate locations and pay overtime on the total number of hours worked,” explained Wage and Hour Division District Director Audrey Hall in Jackson, Mississippi. “The costly consequences that come with errors like these can be avoided with help from the Wage and Hour Division. Depriving healthcare workers their full wages makes it hard for them to care for themselves and their families. These people provide essential services to our community and must be paid every dollar they’ve earned.”

Background: Employers can contact the Wage and Hour Division at its toll-free number, 1-866-4-US-WAGE. The division also offers online resources for employers, such as a fact sheet on Fair Labor Standards Act wage laws overtime requirements. Workers who feel they may not be getting the wages they earned may contact a Wage and Hour Division expert in their state through a list and interactive online map on the agency’s website. Workers and employers alike can help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s timesheet app for free.  Learn more about Wage and Hour Division.

Employer:                               ELJ Inc.

Investigation site:                  133 Batting Cage Trail

                                                 Jacksonville, NC 28540

Investigation findings: Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the North Carolina general contractor misclassified its employees as independent contractors and paid straight-time rates for all hours worked. By doing so, ELJ Inc. failed to pay employees the additional half time rate of pay for overtime  hours over 40 in a workweek, which violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime requirements. The employer also failed to maintain accurate and complete records with employees’ Social Security numbers, addresses, rates of pay and total earnings.  

Back Wages and Liquidated Damages Recovered: $330,367 for 20 workers.                              

Quote: “Employers who misclassify employees as independent contractors deny them overtime wages and may deny them state-required workers compensation and unemployment insurance protections,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Richard Blaylock in Raleigh, North Carolina. “The Wage and Hour Division is determined to hold employers accountable when they shortchange workers and gain an unfair competitive advantage. We suggest that employers review their pay practices to make sure their practices comply with the law, and to contact us with questions or concerns.”

Background: Employers can contact the Wage and Hour Division at its toll-free number, 1-866-4-US-WAGE. The division also offers online resources for employers, such as a fact sheet on Fair Labor Standards Act wage laws overtime requirements and a compliance assistance toolkit for the Construction Industry. Workers who feel they may not be getting the wages they earned may contact a Wage and Hour Division representative in their state through a list and interactive online map on the agency’s website. Workers and employers alike can help ensure hours worked and pay are accurate by downloading the department’s Android Timesheet App for free. Learn more about Wage and Hour Division.