WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of nearly $26 million in grant funding to improve how unemployment insurance benefits are delivered to people facing obstacles to access in California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada and West Virginia.

SALT LAKE CITY – An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $602,745, in overtime back wages for 127 employees of a Woods Cross tile installation company that denied them their full wages and benefits.

TAMPA, FL – A federal court has ordered Tampa Electric Co. to implement a safety compliance plan audited by an independent third party, pay a $500,000 penalty and be subject to 36 months of probation after Tampa Electric pleaded guilty to willfully violating an OSHA standard, which caused five worker fatalities in 2017 at the Big Bend River Station electrical power plant in Apollo Beach. The Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida prosecuted the case.

SABINE PASS, TX – A federal workplace investigation has found two companies’ failures to follow required safety standards endangered the lives of nine workers who found themselves trapped – nearly 30 stories high – atop a burning jack-up drilling platform decommissioned in the Anchorage Basin near a Sabine Pass shipyard.

SALT LAKE CITY - Una investigación del Departamento de Trabajo de EE. UU. recuperó $602,745 en salarios atrasados para 127 empleados de una empresa de instalación de baldosas de Woods Cross que les negaba sus salarios completos y sus beneficios.

Employer:                              Always Reliable Management Services Inc.

Investigation site:                  1815 W. 15th St.

NORTH BARRINGTON, IL – A Roselle contractor with a long history of federal workplace safety violations who currently owes more than $390,000 in penalties, added an additional $303,105 in proposed fines for once again exposing workers to potential deadly fall hazards at a North Barrington job site.

ALEXANDRIA, VA – The U.S. Department of Labor obtained a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prohibit a federal contractor and its owners from retaliating against former and current employees who cooperate with an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced its Veterans’ Employment and Training Service has signed a memorandum of understanding with nine new partners who have agreed to support the agency’s Employment Navigator and Partnership Pilot. With these additions, VETS has recruited 33 partners to support the pilot.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of $70.8 million in grant funding to 166 Indian and Native American entities to help provide employment and training services to low-income and unemployed Native American adults and youth – including American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian adults and youth – and create pathways to middle-class careers.  

AUGUSTA, ME – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Maine Department of Labor Workplace Safety and Health Division’s SafetyWorks! outreach program, and the Construction Safety Alliance of Maine signed an alliance to promote workplace safety and health and educate construction employers and workers in the state on safety and health hazards.

PITTSBURGH – A federal court has ordered a Pennsylvania mother and daughter to pay more than $2.4 million in overtime back wages and liquidated damages, after a three-day trial confirmed the pair used illegal pay practices to avoid paying full wages to 345 workers who provided daily living assistance and home healthcare in the Pittsburgh area.

HONOLULU – A U.S. Department of Labor investigation has recovered $28,455 in unpaid overtime wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages from a Big Island nursery and landscaping company after they failed to pay overtime wages to 37 employees.

PITTSBURGH –  The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $65,640 in back wages and liquidated damages for three workers at two Pittsburgh-area gas station and convenience stores after its investigation found the employer had a history of shortchanging workers and violating federal overtime laws.

SINKING SPRING, PA – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment requiring a Sinking Spring home healthcare agency and its operator– which intentionally misclassified workers as independent contractors and misapplied an overtime rule to avoid paying full wages – to pay 75 caregiver employees a total of $293,990 in back wages and liquidated damages.

TARRYTOWN, NY – A Nanuet roofing and siding contractor with a significant history of safety violations and penalties now faces an additional $1,343,363 in penalties after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated another fatal fall by a company employee, the second in three years.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury today issued final rules concerning standards related to the arbitration process implementing the No Surprises Act, a bipartisan law to protect consumers against surprise medical bills.

TRENTON– To continue to promote workplace safety and health in New Jersey workplaces, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration today joined with the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the New Jersey State Industrial Safety Committee in renewing an alliance to help protect the Garden State’s workers.

INDIANAPOLIS – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $92,326 in back wages and liquidated damages for 18 workers whose employer paid them a fixed weekly rate to stock shelves, serve customers at meat counters and operate cash registers at three LaCanasta Grocery stores in Indianapolis.

Employer:                                      American Pizza Empire LLC