LEHIGH ACRES, FL – Eighty-one workers harvesting squash and zucchini at a Homestead farm discovered the contractor who hired them was not going to provide meals or kitchen facilities. Workers were forced to spend more on meals than $12.46 per day, the amount promised by the contractor, a violation of the federal H-2A guest worker visa program.

An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division of Pride Harvesting LLC – a Lehigh Acres-based farm labor employer – led to the recovery of $21,748 in back wages for the workers. The division also assessed a $1,412 civil penalty.

“Agricultural workers are among the most vulnerable essential workers our laws protect,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Daniel Cronin in Miami. “The Wage and Hour Division remains committed to enforcing those protections and ensuring that employers provide workers the wages, meals and housing promised in the job offer. Employers who fail to comply are subject to payment of back wages, civil penalties and potential debarment from program participation. We offer numerous online resources to help businesses comply with the requirements of the law, and we encourage employers to call us directly and confidentially with any questions they may have.”

The H-2A program helps American employers hire temporary foreign workers to fill much-needed roles when sufficient numbers of able, willing and qualified U.S. workers are not available to perform the jobs.

Pride Harvesting LLC provides H-2A workers to harvest squash and zucchini for Torbert Farms Inc. in Homestead.

The division offers multiple compliance assistance resources, including an agriculture compliance assistance toolkit, to provide employers the information they need to comply with the law. For more information about MSPA, H-2A and other laws enforced by the division, contact its 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.

CRYSTAL RIVER, FL – Few would argue with the fact that home healthcare nurses – who serve the needs of our communities and their most vulnerable – deserve all the wages they legally earn. When employers fail to pay workers like these correctly, the U.S. Department of Labor responds.

Following an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, Florida Caregivers Inc. – a Crystal River business – has paid $33,626 in back wages to 22 workers to resolve violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division found the employer misclassified caregivers as independent contractors rather than employees. As a result, Florida Caregivers failed to pay overtime when these employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.

“These essential workers deserve to take home every penny of their hard-earned wages,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff in Tampa, Florida. “Employers who arbitrarily decide to treat employees as independent contractors hurt not only the affected workers, but also other employers who pay their employees as the law requires. We remain committed to ensuring essential protections for workers, and to providing clear, confidential compliance assistance to any worker or employer with questions.”

Employees of Florida Caregivers Inc. provide 24-hour nursing care, or assistance with daily living needs including bathing and grooming, medication reminders, housekeeping, as well as transportation to doctors’ appointments and errands.

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’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.

FORT MYERS, FL – An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered more than $36,000 in back wages for workers at a grocery store that denied them overtime pay required by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

At Pica Italian Deli Inc. – operating as Mario’s Italian Meat Market – investigators found the employer paid two deli clerks, one cook and one stocker, flat salaries regardless of the number of hours they worked each workweek. By doing so, the employer violated FLSA overtime requirements when these employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, yet they failed to pay them overtime. As a result, the division recovered $36,279 in overtime back wages for the four workers. The employer also violated FLSA recordkeeping requirements by failing to track the number of hours these employees worked each workweek.

“Some employers believe incorrectly that simply paying an employee a flat salary automatically means they don’t have to pay those workers overtime. That is not true,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff in Tampa, Florida. “Any exemptions from the law’s overtime provisions require that very specific criteria be met. We hope this investigation’s outcome encourages other employers to review their own pay practices to ensure they avoid similar violations and comply with the law.”

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’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.

FRANKLIN, TN – A Franklin lawn care company has paid $39,373 in back wages to 31 workers following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor that found the employer violated the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  

Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found Lawnwise Inc. paid its workers a fixed salary plus commissions, regardless of the number of hours they worked each workweek. By doing so, the employer violated FLSA overtime requirements when employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek but the employer failed to pay them overtime. The division also found the employer paid one employee commission only during the worker’s last week with the company, resulting in a minimum wage violation, and violated recordkeeping requirements by failing to record the number of hours employees worked.

“Employers must pay workers all of the wages they have legally earned, including overtime,” said Wage and Hour Division Acting District Director Kenneth Striping in Nashville, Tennessee. “Other employers in this industry should use this investigation as an opportunity to review their own pay practices to ensure they comply with the law. The Wage and Hour Division invites anyone with questions about workplace rights or responsibilities to call us, confidentially, to speak with a trained professional to get their questions answered.”

Unless a specific exemption applies, workers paid on a salary basis, by the hour, on a piece rate, on a day rate, or by other methods are entitled to overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek.

Based in Franklin, Lawnwise Inc. is a locally owned-and-operated company providing lawn care, pest control and other landscaping services in Nashville and the surrounding area.  

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Information is also available at www.dol.gov/agencies/whd, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division.

LORAIN, OH – Employers that hire temporary foreign workers must pay their international transportation and meal expenses while they travel from their home country, a federal requirement that a Lorain landscaping company violated when it left the workers it hired to pay their own way to the U.S.

An investigation by U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found Alvarado Landscaping owed 12 temporary employees $36,179 in back wages for violations of the H-2B Visa program. The company also paid $40,000 in civil money penalties.

The program helps supply employers with temporary foreign workers while protecting U.S. workers’ access to the same jobs. The program is often used in the landscaping, agricultural and resort industries.

“These workers, who are away from their families for months at a time, deserve to be paid every penny of the wages they have legally earned,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director George Victory in Columbus, Ohio. “Enforcing the requirements of this program protects these vulnerable workers, protects U.S. workers in this industry, and levels the playing field for employers who play be the rules.”

The division determined Alvarado Landscaping violated the H2-B program when it:

• Failed to pay workers’ inbound and outbound international transportation and meal costs.
• Paid H-2B workers overtime hours in cash at a rate less than the required wage.
• Took impermissible deductions from workers’ pay to cover their housing.
• Provided investigators with inaccurate time and pay records.

For more information about the H-2B Program, the FLSA and other laws enforced by the Wage and Hour Division, contact the agency’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.

SAND SPRINGS, OK – Oilfield pipeline inspectors work long hours performing critical work, keeping more than 2.6 million miles of pipe in the U.S. secure and the communities around them safe. When pipelines explode, the damage can be catastrophic to communities, economies and the environment. The oil and gas industry depends on independent inspection companies to protect this essential infrastructure.

A recent investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered $3,852,968 in back wages for 1,100 employees of one of these inspection companies, FIS Holdings LLC of Sand Springs– which the division found had violated overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Investigators discovered that the company, which does business as Frontier Integrity Solutions Operations LLC, paid workers a fixed amount per day, regardless of the number of hours that they worked. This practice resulted in violations when employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, but the employer failed to track those hours or pay workers overtime. The employees, in 40 states nationwide, typically worked between 50 and 60 hours per week. The employer’s failure to keep records of the number of hours employees worked also resulted in recordkeeping violations.

“These pipeline inspectors work hard to protect our communities, and now it’s our turn to protect them,” said Wage and Hour Division Principal Deputy Administrator Jessica Looman. “They deserve to be paid every cent of their hard-earned wages. Particularly as we emerge from a global pandemic, the Wage and Hour Division is committed to protecting the workplace rights of essential workers, and to leveling the playing field for employers who play by the rules. We invite workers who feel they are not being paid legally and employers with questions about their responsibilities to contact us to speak confidentially with a trained professional to have their questions answered or to file a complaint.”

FIS Holdings has paid overtime back wages to workers in the following states:

• Alabama
• Idaho
• Michigan
• New Mexico
• South Dakota
• Alaska
• Illinois
• Minnesota
• North Carolina
• Tennessee
• Arkansas
• Indiana
• Missouri
• North Dakota
• Texas
• Arizona
• Kansas
• Mississippi
• Ohio
• Utah
• California
• Kentucky
• Montana
• Oklahoma
• Washington
• Colorado
• Louisiana
• Nebraska
• Pennsylvania
• Wisconsin
• Florida
• Massachusetts
• Nevada
• Rhode Island
• West Virginia
• Georgia
• Maryland
• New Jersey
• South Carolina
• Wyoming

FIS Holdings is a North American leader in oil and gas pipeline inspection and integrity services, serving customers in the U.S. and Canada.

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’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.

En Español

STREAMWOOD, IL – An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recovered $144,775 in overtime back wages for 14 employees of the Fiesta Market Inc. based in Streamwood. The division found the grocer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by wrongly considering salaried employees working in positions such as butchers, truck drivers, cooks and produce stockers as exempt from overtime, and failing to keep accurate records of the number of overtime hours they worked.

Fiesta paid these workers flat salaries, regardless of the number of hours they worked per week. By doing so, they violated FLSA overtime requirements when these employees worked more than 40 hours per week but the employer failed to pay them overtime. The grocer erroneously believed that payment on a salary basis in itself meant that the employees were not due overtime.

“Grocery workers are among the essential workforce that have kept us moving forward throughout the challenges of the past year, and they deserve to be paid every cent of their hard-earned wages,” explained Wage and Hour Division District Director Tom Gauza, in Chicago. “Too often, we find employers fail to pay overtime to salaried workers mistakenly. Other employers should use the results of this investigation as an opportunity to evaluate their own pay practices to ensure they comply with the law.”

Unless a specific exemption applies, workers paid on a salary basis, by the hour, on a piece rate, on a day rate, or by other methods are entitled to overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Investigators found violations at the company’s locations in Streamwood, Mount Prospect and Bolingbrook.

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’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.

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a final rule delaying portions of the 2020 Tip final rule until Dec. 31, 2021.

The remainder of the 2020 Tip final rule will become effective April 30, 2021, including the rules addressing:

• A prohibition on employers, including supervisors and managers, keeping tips received by workers, regardless of whether the employer takes a credit for workers’ tips toward their obligation to pay those workers minimum wage.
• The recordkeeping requirements for an employer that does not take a tip credit to include non-tipped workers, such as cooks and dishwashers, in nontraditional tip-sharing arrangements.
• An employer that collects tips for tip pools must distribute tips fully no later than the regular payday for the workweek or pay period in which the establishment collected the tips.

The eight-month extension of the effective date for specific portions of the 2020 tip rule allows the department time to address additional questions of law, policy and fact and complete separate rulemaking related to the assessment of civil money penalties, and the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s tip credit provision to tipped employees who also perform non-tipped work.

“Tipped workers are among those hardest hit amid the pandemic, making these essential frontline workers a priority for the Wage and Hour Division,” said Wage and Hour Division Deputy Administrator Jessica Looman. “The final rule announced today ensures that we have time to consider – fully and thoughtfully – all of the circumstances in today’s rapidly changing workplace, while allowing several portions of the 2020 rule beneficial to essential workers to take effect. Those workers deserve our careful and thoughtful consideration as we craft and implement rules that affect their well-being.”

For more information on protections for tipped workers and others under the FLSA, or learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, visit www.dol.gov/agencies/whd. You may also call toll-free 1-866-4US-WAGE to speak directly and confidentially to a trained Wage and Hour Division professional. The division protects workers regardless of immigration status, and can communicate with workers in more than 200 languages.

LAVONIA, GA – A Lavonia restaurant’s decision to require its tipped servers to work for tips only by requiring them to cash their paychecks and return their cash wages led to the recovery of $123,869 in back wages for three workers following a U.S. Department of Labor investigation.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division determined La Cabaña Mexican Restaurant Inc. violated minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division found La Cabaña’s practice of requiring workers to return their pay and keep only their tips resulted in the employer owing workers back wages at the full federal minimum wage for every hour they had worked under these circumstances. The employer also failed to pay overtime when employees worked more than 40 hours in a week, yet falsified their records to show such payment. That practice resulted in the department citing overtime and recordkeeping violations against La Cabaña. 

“During the pandemic, essential restaurant workers have put themselves at risk to keep their employers’ businesses open and to provide for themselves and their families, all while earning some of the lowest wages of workers in any industry,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Steven Salazar in Atlanta. “Our investigation found this employer stole wages from its workers, harming them and their families and gaining an unfair advantage over employers who play by the rules. The U.S. Department of Labor will enforce the law to recover hard-earned wages for workers, and to ensure a level playing field for business owners who comply with the law.”

For more information about the FLSA and other laws enforced by the division, contact the agency’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.

IOTA, LA – Cada año, la industria de cangrejos de río en Luisiana depende de trabajadores extranjeros temporales que junto a trabajadores estadounidenses realizan, de enero a julio, las labores necesarias para garantizar una buena cosecha. Ellos reparan, construyen, colocan y retiran las trampas en los campos, reparan diques y tuberías, limpian el equipamiento e inundan y drenan los campos. Todo esto se hace para producir el 95% de los pequeños crustáceos consumidos por los estadounidenses anualmente.

Tras una investigación de la División de Horas y Salarios del Departamento de Trabajo de EE.UU.,
D&G Frey Crawfish LLC, que en Iota opera como Gerard Frey Farms Inc., pago $15,723 por salarios atrasados después de que la división descubrió que no había pagado la tasa de pago por hora requerida para trabajadores extranjeros temporales bajo el programa H-2A. Los investigadores determinaron que D&G Frey pagaba $10 por cada hora trabajada por encima de las 40 semanales, y no $11.33 como requiere la ley. El empleador tampoco cumplió con los requisitos de las declaraciones de pago al no incluir las tasas de pago de cada trabajador, el número de horas trabajadas y otras informaciones relativas a los ingresos de los trabajadores. Además de los salarios atrasados pagados, D&G Frey pagó $6,357 en multas civiles.

“Los empleadores deben pagar a sus empleados todo el salario que estos han ganado. Esto es especialmente crítico para los trabajadores esenciales y con salarios bajos que colaboran con el suministro de alimentos al país mientras continuamos recuperándonos de la pandemia”, expresó el director del distrito de Horas y Salarios, Troy Mouton en Nueva Orleans. “La industria del cangrejo de río es un contribuyente valioso a la economía del Estado Bayou, por lo tanto, aquellos que ayudan a llevar el producto al mercado deben recibir el pago como lo exige la ley. El resultado de esta investigación debería ser un recordatorio para que otros empleadores revisen sus prácticas salariales y se aseguren de que cumplen con la ley”.

El departamento ofrece varios recursos para garantizar que los empleadores cuenten con las herramientas necesarias para comprender sus responsabilidades y para cumplir con la ley federal, tal como, videos en línea y llamadas confidenciales a las oficinas locales de la División de Horas y Salarios.

Para obtener más información acerca de la Ley de Normas Justas de Trabajo (FLSA) y otras leyes que hace cumplir la división, llame a la línea de ayuda gratuita de la agencia, al 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Obtenga más información sobre la División de Horas y Salarios y utilice su herramienta de búsqueda si cree que es posible que le adeuden salarios atrasados y hayan sido cobrados por la división.

In English