Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DOL NEWS—$985K in back wages, damages recovered for 182 workers affected by reported FLSA, FMLA infractions, (Jan 24, 2025)

By Pamela Wolf, J.D.

The WHD found wage-hour and other violations at employers in the restaurant, home care, cleaning and sanitation, and health services industries.

The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) separately announced its recovery of $985,378 in back wages and damages for 182 workers at employers in Illinois, Louisiana, and Oklahoma due to reported FLSA and FMLA violations. A Chattanooga, Tennessee-based employer also must pay $400,000 in civil money penalties for child labor infractions.

Unlawfully kept employee tips. Pursuant to a consent judgment entered by a federal district court in Oklahoma, Edge Craft LLC and its owner/operator must pay $66,000 in back wages and liquidated damages for 13 restaurant workers after the Oklahoma City employer violated the FLSA by keeping employees’ tips and failing to pay overtime wages. A WHD investigation determined that the employer paid straight time wages for all hours over 40 in a workweek rather than overtime as required; incorrectly applied the tipped employee designation; failed to keep required wage records; and used an inappropriate exemption for a manager, leading to overtime violations.

“Tips are solely the property of workers who earned them,” explained the WHD District Director in Oklahoma City. “An employer that takes a tip credit against its minimum wage obligations is not allowed to keep any portion of employees’ tips or share them with non-tipped workers.”

Home care workers misclassified as independent contractors. The WHD recovered $844,294 in back wages and liquidated damages for a total of 158 employees who were misclassified as independent contractors at two south Louisiana companion care providers, We Care Homes Inc. and Special Needs Unlimited LLC. As a result of the misclassification, the workers were deprived of FLSA-mandated overtime wages. Specifically, the WHD recovered $634,119 from We Care Homes for 123 affected employees and $210,156 for the 35 affected employees at Special Needs Unlimited LLC.

Failed to pay OT wages. Under a consent judgment entered by a federal district court in Illinois, Green Maintenance Services Inc. and its owner must pay $60,084 in back wages, liquidated damages, and post-judgment interest to 10 workers. The WHD found the employer violated the FLSA by failing to pay employees overtime at time and one-half their average hourly rate for hours worked over 40 in a week from at least April 7, 2021, through April 6, 2023. The division also noted that two sanitation employees were misclassified as independent contractors, and one employee did not receive a final paycheck. The consent judgment also requires the employer to classify sanitation workers as employees and not independent contractors.

The DOL filed its lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division; the case is No. 1:24-cv-03094.

Children working overnight sanitation shifts. QSI LLC, agreed to pay $400,000 in civil money penalties, monitor and audit policies to prevent the employment of children in dangerous jobs, and maintain a toll-free number for reporting concerns about the illegal employment of children. The WHD found the Chattanooga, Tennessee-headquartered cleaning contractor violated the FLSA when it employed children on overnight sanitation shifts at 13 meat and poultry processing facilities from January 2021 through February 2024. The alleged violations were found in Alabama, California, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The agreement also requires QSI LLC to re-survey all of its work locations to determine if any employees are under the age of 18; review and evaluate child labor compliance training materials for managers; maintain accurate records of all employees, including date of birth and work tasks assigned; incorporate an anti-child labor provision in its third-party contracts and attach Fact Sheet #43 on Child Labor in Non­-Agriculture Occupations to all contracts for its services; and maintain a toll-free hotline number for people to seek guidance and/or to report child labor compliance concerns anonymously.

Child labor penalties up 89 percent. Since 2022, the department has investigated various third-party contractors that provide sanitation services at meat packing establishments throughout the nation. In fiscal year 2024, department investigators found more than 4,000 children had been employed in violation of federal child labor laws. The department addressed those violations by assessing employers more than $15.1 million in civil money penalties, an 89 percent increase from the previous year. The division continues to prioritize protecting children and currently has over 1,000 open child labor investigations.

FMLA protected leave denied. The WHD recovered $15,000 in lost wages for an employee illegally fired for taking FMLA-protected medical leave by CREOKS Health Services, dba TruHealth Integrated Care, which operates 24 healthcare locations across eastern Oklahoma and one in Mountain View, Arkansas. The WHD found the employer failed to respond to an employee’s request for family and medical leave in a timely manner, preventing the employee from exercising their legally-protected right to FMLA leave. The employer then fired the employee for job abandonment without considering their FMLA eligibility. The division determined that TruHealth Integrated Care, which is contracted by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and provides various healthcare services the employer, owed the former employee lost wages.

Companies: Edge Craft LLC; We Care Homes Inc.; Special Needs Unlimited LLC; Green Maintenance Services Inc.; QSI LLC; CREOKS Health Services; TruHealth Integrated Care

News: AgencyNews WageHour EmployeeStatus MinimumWage Overtime RemediesDamages