WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the availability of an increased $90 million in funding grants to provide reemployment opportunities for displaced workers, historically marginalized communities or groups and those unemployed for an extended period or who have exhausted unemployment insurance or other pandemic unemployment insurance programs.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The prime contractor responsible for construction of the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans paid back wages and benefits to 18 workers on the project after a federal investigation found the subcontractor who employed them had shortchanged them.

In the week ending August 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 348,000, a decrease of 29,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,000. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 375,000 to 377,000. The 4-week moving average was 377,750, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020 when it was 225,500. The previous week's average was revised up by 500 from 396,250 to 396,750.

BOSTON – On Feb. 24, 2021, at a sewer repair worksite on High Street in downtown Boston, Jordy Alexander Castaneda Romero, 27, and Juan Carlos Figueroa Gutierrez, 33, died after a dump truck struck and pushed them into a nine-foot deep trench.

ATHENS, GA – Investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor sometimes find employers that illegally pay straight-time wages for overtime hours in an effort to curb operating costs. Far less often they find what the operator of two Athens tobacco and liquor stores was doing – paying workers even less than their normal hourly rate of pay for their overtime hours.

DETROIT– A South Carolina-based contractor that processes identification cards for members of the armed forces, their families, retirees, government contractors and civilians has paid $1,705,441 in back wages and fringe benefits to 81 employees after the company violated the requirements of the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act.

MEEKER, CO – While law enforcement officers in Rio Blanco County worked to uphold the law, they themselves fell victim to illegal pay practices when their employer failed to pay them for time spent performing work before and after their scheduled shifts, an investigation by U.S. Department of Labor has found.

WILDWOOD, FL – In urgent care centers, workdays may be long and hard. For clinicians who split their hours of work between two jointly owned central Florida facilities, their employers made the work a bit harder by failing to pay them all of their legally earned wages.

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor received an A+ on the Small Business Administration’s recently announced Fiscal Year 2020 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard, marking the fourth straight year the department has received the scorecard’s highest grade.

CARLISLE, PA – Ignoring lump sum bonus payments made to essential supermarket workers during the pandemic when calculating their overtime rates led to federal wage violations by a large Northeast supermarket chain that shortchanged more than 3,300 workers in four states, a U.S. Department of Labor investigation has determined.

PUEBLO, CO – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has again cited a Pueblo home manufacturing company for exposing employees to defective scaffolding and ladders, and failing to train workers on scaffolding safety.

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of $1,866,667 in incremental funding to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to support job creation and workforce training services in 13 counties affected significantly by widespread opioid use, addiction and overdose.

NEW HAVEN, CT – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Dimeo Construction Co., the Connecticut Department of Labor’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the New Haven Building Trades signed a partnership agreement to promote worker safety and health on the 101 College St. and 100 College St. Pedestrian Bridge construction projects in New Haven.

WESTMINSTER, MD – A Westminster healthcare management company, a large employer in long-term care and rehabilitation, could have shown more care when paying 256 essential workers at four facilities in Pennsylvania and one in Maryland.

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the availability of up to $5 million in grant funding to improve workers’ ability to exercise their labor rights in the agricultural supply chains in Guatemala and Honduras and the textile/apparel – or maquila – sector of El Salvador.

RAPID CITY, SD ‒ Four days before Christmas in 2020, an excavation company’s owner was fixing an underground sewer line in Rapid City when the trench around him collapsed; his life ended under thousands of pounds of dirt.

BOSTON– The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent preliminary injunction, which prevents a Holbrook tree service company and its sole officer from retaliating against former and current employees who cooperate with an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division or engage in other activity protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

NEW YORK – United Behavioral Health and United Healthcare Insurance Co. will pay $13.6 million to affected participants and beneficiaries; pay $2,084,249 in penalties; and take other corrective actions following investigations and litigation by the U.S. Department of Labor and the New York State Attorney General.

DENVER – A worker at a Denver milk packaging plant operated by Safeway Inc. lost four fingers while operating a molding machine that lacked required safeguards.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the Feb. 12 incident and cited the U.S. supermarket chain for two willful and five serious violations and one other than serious violation for: