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Concrete Company To Pay Employees $412,000 In Back Wages & Damages

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has ordered Casa Concrete Inc., a provider of concrete services, and its officers, Alice Fernandes and Manuel Fernandes, to pay $412,000 in back wages and liquidated damages to 20 employees for violating the overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The consent judgment also prohibits the defendants from retaliating against, or soliciting repayment of recovered wages from the employees.

Investigators found that Casa Concrete—based in Selden, New York—typically paid employees by check for their first 40 hours of work, but paid them in cash at a straight time—or lower—rates for any hours they worked beyond 40 per workweek. The company also failed to pay employees for time spent working in its Long Island yard and traveling to and from the yard to job sites. In addition, Casa Concrete failed to keep required records of employees’ work hours, rates of pay, and total wages paid.

Under the FLSA, employees are entitled to receive all of the wages they have legally earned for all the hours that they have worked. Employees with questions about the FLSA are encouraged to reach out to experienced FLSA attorneys for help.

Experienced FLSA attorneys will use all tools at their disposal—including litigation when necessary—to ensure that workers are not exploited and employers don’t gain an unfair advantage over their competitors by breaking the law.

 

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Arizona Construction Company Paying $214,392 To 145 Employees

The U.S. District Court of Arizona entered a consent judgment requiring Scottsdale construction contractor MNI Enterprises Inc. to pay $214,392 in back wages to 145 employees for violating the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court also ordered the employer to pay an additional $25,608 in penalties due to the willful and repeated nature of the violations.

 

Investigators determined MNI Enterprises Inc. – doing business as U.S. Carpentry Tucson LLC – paid employees on a piece-rate basis without regard to the number of hours worked. Overtime violations resulted when the company failed to pay the required overtime premium of time-and-one-half for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Investigators found similar overtime violations as a result of two earlier investigations of the company in 2004 and 2013.

 

Paying employees on a piece-rate basis does not automatically exempt them from overtime. This consent judgment helps stop non-compliant employers from taking advantage of their employees and from gaining an unfair competitive advantage over competitors that strive to abide by the law.

 

We urge all employees with questions about the FLSA or any of the federal wage laws to contact an experienced FLSA attorney. All calls are confidential.

 

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El Rodeo Mexican Restaurants To Pay $833,992 In Back Wages To 64 Employees

A majority owner of two Iowa restaurants has paid $833,992 in back wages to 64 employees to resolve federal wage violations, including falsifying payroll and time records and failing to pay required minimum wages and overtime. Investigators determined that Gloria Ochoa, majority owner of Rojas LLC and Ocha Inc., which do business as El Rodeo Mexican Restaurants, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Ochoa has also paid a civil money penalty for violating child labor regulations.

 

Investigators determined that Ochoa violated minimum wage requirements when she required servers to cash their paychecks and return the amounts of the checks, in cash, to the employer. Ochoa also required servers to surrender $20 from their daily tips to the employer. Additionally, the restaurants kept no time records reflecting when employees worked, instead paying workers for 80 hours biweekly regardless of their actual hours. This practice resulted in overtime violations when employees worked beyond 40 hours in a workweek, yet received no overtime pay. Employees routinely worked 55 hours per week. Investigators also determined that Ochoa employed a minor employee outside of the work hours allowed by the FLSA’s child labor requirements.

 

Employees depend on receiving all the wages they have rightfully earned. The resolution of this case demonstrates investigators’ commitment to those workers and to leveling the playing field for employers who play by the rules.

 

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A California Appeals Court Exempts Trucker from Federal Arbitration Law

A California appellate court has confirmed a lower court’s ruling for a truck driver who argued an arbitration provision in his employment contract was invalid, allowing him to file a class action lawsuit per California’s labor laws.

In May 2012, Tony Muro was hired by Cornerstone Staffing Solutions, an employee staffing firm providing assistance to a variety of employers throughout California, Michigan, Nevada and New Jersey, according to court documents. Cornerstone specialized in logistics and transportation staffing and recruitment. Muro’s position was to drive trucks for Team Campbell, shipping products from its location in Fontana, California across the country.

When he joined Cornerstone, Muro signed an employment contract that included a provision requiring that any employment disputes be resolved in arbitration, as well as a separate provision in which he waived his right to pursue class actions, either in court or in arbitration.

In 2015, Muro filed a proposed class action against Cornerstone for a number of alleged violations of California wage law, including failure to pay all compensation for time worked, failure to provide meal periods, failure to authorize/permit rest breaks, failure to comply with itemized wage statements, failure to pay timely wages due at termination/waiting time penalties, and violation of the unfair competition law.

Cornerstone responded to the suit by seeking to enforce the arbitration provision as to Muro’s individual claims and dismiss the class allegations. Cornerstone claimed that Muro was not exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) because he worked for a staffing firm and not a transportation company. But Muro argued that an exception to the FAA applied in his case because he was a transportation worker.

A three-judge panel for California’s Fourth Appellate District sided with Muro, holding that the FAA exemption hinges on the type of work done by an employee, and not a company’s main industry.

“Absent specific direction from the United States Supreme Court, we decline to … require that workers who are actually engaged in transporting goods in foreign or interstate commerce also prove that their employer is involved in the transportation industry,” Justice William Dato wrote.

Since the FAA is inapplicable to Muro’s contract, the panel said, the correct test to determine whether the class waiver provision should be enforced is a test prescribed under California appellate precedent.

“We conclude that … the trial court correctly found a class proceeding would be a significantly more effective way of permitting the employees to enforce their statutory rights,” the panel said. “For these reasons, based on its finding the class waiver constituted an unlawful exculpatory clause, the trial court properly denied the petition to compel arbitration.”

Trump Administration Proposes New Department Of Labor Regulation That Would Allow Employers To Share In Their Employee’s Tips

Ask anyone who has worked in the service industry and they’ll tell you how hard it can be.  According to the National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry employs approximately 14.7 million people in the United States.  Many of those employees work at shockingly low hourly rates and depend on tips to survive.  Those employees could be in for added struggle if the current administration succeeds in implementing the proposed Department of Labor regulations.

Currently, the maximum tip credit an employer can claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is $5.12 per hour.  In other words, because the federal minimum wage is just $7.25 per hour, a tipped employee could be paid as little as $2.13 per hour.  The idea behind the “tip-credit” rule is that the employee is able to make up the difference between the lowered hourly rate and the federal minimum wage rate by receiving tips from customers.  This rule has resulted in a significant amount of litigation because when all is said and done, the employee doesn’t always make enough in tips to bring their hourly rate above $7.25 per hour for all hours worked.  In some cases, the employee may be spending significant time during their shift performing non-tip generating activities like cleaning or rolling silverware, which prevents them from earning tips.  In any case, the bread and butter of a tipped employee’s earnings are their tips.

Given outside factors, such as the rising cost of living or increasing state minimum wage rates, many employers have scrapped the tip credit altogether.  Instead, they pay the employee at the regular minimum wage rate.  Generally, tips received can’t be shared with other employees that are not regularly tipped employees.  However, the FLSA does not address the tip sharing rules for employees that are not subject to a tip credit.  This has led many employers to argue that tips should be used for “topping up” the pay of their untipped “back of the house” workers, such as dishwashers.

The Obama administration prohibited the practice of sharing tips with employees that do not regularly receive tips.  However, under the Trump administration, the Labor Department has proposed rescinding that rule, which would allow restaurants to share wait staff’s tips with back-of-the-house workers.  The administration has argued that it will equalize pay between front of the house and back of the house workers.  However, there remains a concern that the tips are withheld by the employer, not paid to the dishwashers.

If the rule passes, it could result in massive changes to the service industry.  Tips serve not only to compensate the server, but also to motivate them to provide the customer with the best possible experience.  Take tips out of the equation or diminish their importance, and the server that greets you with a smile and kindly laughs at your not-so-funny jokes, might not feel so inclined to do so.

 

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