AUSTIN, TX – When an employee of a luxury auto dealership in Austin learned a co-worker had tested positive for COVID-19 in December 2020, they alerted the company’s management and requested they notify other employees immediately of their exposure risk.

After the dealership failed to act, the employee emailed all company employees about the potential hazards. Less than an hour later, the car dealer terminated the employee.

Date of Action:          March 13, 2023

Type of Action:         Fair Labor Standards Act consent order and judgment

Company/Owners:    GEM Interiors Inc., Milford, Ohio

KANSAS CITY, KS – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit against the owner of two Kansas restaurants who allegedly denied minimum and overtime wages to kitchen staff, servers, hosts and food runners after some worked as many as 66 hours per week.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has requested that a federal court in Vermont allow the department to intervene and seek the court’s dismissal of a counterclaim that Bimbo Bakeries USA Inc. – one of the nation’s largest baking companies – has asserted against its own workers who are seeking the overtime compensation that they are allegedly owed.

NEW YORK – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit asking a federal court to stop a Brooklyn, New York, healthcare staffing provider from allegedly making employees sign contracts that would force them to work for the company for three years or repay rightfully earned wages.

SPRINGDALE, OH – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a federal court order that recovers $19,934 in back wages and damages from an Ohio home healthcare and adult daycare service provider who denied seven employees overtime wages and failed to properly pay in-home workers when clients’ needs disrupted their sleep time.

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.   

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.

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.

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.