BOSTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment and order prohibiting a Somerville, Massachusetts, restaurant and its owner from retaliating against employees who cooperate in the department’s efforts to enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act. Fakhouri Inc. – operating as Sound Bites Café – and Yasser Mirza must also pay $15,000 in punitive damages to the affected current and former employees in connection with the department’s retaliation claim.

NEW YORK – A federal court has ordered a Brewster home care provider to stop retaliating against employees in an effort to obstruct a U.S. Department of Labor investigation into the employers’ pay practices.

WASHINGTON – Since 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor has seen a 69 percent increase in children being employed illegally by companies. In the last fiscal year, the department found 835 companies it investigated had employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws. The maximum civil monetary penalty under current law for a child labor violation is $15,138 per child. That’s not high enough to be a deterrent for major profitable companies.

WASHINGTON – A federal panel has affirmed that Walmart Inc. violated federal workplace safety standards at its warehouse in Johnstown, New York, when it failed to prevent stored merchandise from falling onto – and seriously injuring – an employee in 2017.

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment that orders a Salinas labor contractor – who withheld final paychecks and transportation expenses – to hundreds of farmworkers to pay more than $460,000 in damages and penalties, following the department’s investigation and litigation.

URBANA, IL – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a federal court order requiring an Illinois home healthcare provider to pay 69 workers $1.1 million in back wages and damages for its failure to pay these workers for all hours worked.

ALIQUIPPA, PA – As the nation today recognizes the selfless and dedicated work of professional caregivers on National Caregivers Day, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that a federal court has entered a default judgment against an Aliquippa home health provider and its owner, after an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer denied 23 home health aides overtime wages.

WASHINGTON – A federal administrative law judge has ordered the operator of mining complexes in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky to pay civil penalties totaling $349,444 to resolve 533 citations for mine safety and health violations U.S. Department of Labor inspectors identified at 14 mines.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The opening of a federal investigation into the pay practices of a Haslett assisted living facility in the fall of 2021 prompted its owner to threaten employees with termination if they spoke with investigators and trick them into admitting whether or not they had cooperated with the investigation, a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit filed on Feb. 3, 2023, alleges.   

HARTFORD, CT – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered a total of $41,221 for 22 workers employed by a West Hartford moving and storage company and its subsidiary that provided bulk mail delivery service under a contract with the U.S. Postal Service.

BRAINTREE, MA – Four months after citing a Quincy roofing and construction contractor – with a long history of exposing its employees to dangerous fall hazards and who reneged on a 2017 federal settlement agreement – inspectors with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration discovered the employer again knowingly exposing workers to serious injuries or worse.

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – The operator of two Long Island restaurants may have thought they only had to take orders from customers, but now has learned that ignoring the orders of federal investigators and a federal court will get you arrested.

LAS VEGAS – After a 2013 investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor that recovered $47,393 from a Nevada paint and specialty coatings contractor and its owner whose illegal pay practices denied 21 Utah workers overtime wages, a reasonable employer might try to avoid repeating a bad and costly decision.

Cory Summerhays, owner of Unforgettable Coatings Inc. – a Las Vegas company operating in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Utah – chose instead to double down, and then some. 

BRECKENRIDGE, CO – The owner of a Vail construction company facing a felony manslaughter charge has surrendered to local law enforcement after the Summit County Judge Edward J. Casias issued an arrest warrant on Jan. 23, 2023, related to the findings of a federal safety investigation into a deadly trench collapse in November 2021.

BIRMINGHAM, AL – An Alabama plastics manufacturing company has pleaded guilty to a willful violation of workplace safety requirements as part of an agreement filed in federal court spurred initially by a U.S. Department of Labor investigation into a 45-year-old worker’s death in Helena in August 2017.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Alabama prosecuted the case.

NEW YORK – The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting a Patterson nursery and garden supply business, and its president from threatening its employees and obstructing a U.S. Department of Labor investigation.

Date of action:                       Jan. 17, 2023

Type of action:                      U.S. Department of Labor complaint

MINNEAPOLIS – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment in federal court requiring a Minneapolis private in-home care provider to pay $1.6 million in back wages and damages, as part of the department’s effort to recover unpaid overtime wages for 136 healthcare workers in the Twin-Cities area.

DENVER – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a complaint in federal court against the operator of a Firestone franchise restaurant who allegedly fired two workers whom the employer believed complained to the department’s Wage and Hour Division about the employer’s pay practice and participated in the investigation that followed.

MADISON, WI – Five years after leaving their Guatemalan and Mexican homes for jobs promised by owners of two Wisconsin forestry companies and discovering they would not receive the wages, benefits and types of jobs described in their contracts, 263 workers will finally receive $1.1 million in unpaid wages after extensive federal investigations.