Dodging FLSA costs employer $350k

Violating FLSA is going to cost employers a hefty amount of money if the Department of Labor finds out about it during an investigation.

In a recent case, a Honolulu based company named M.H. Electric was taken to task by the investigators of the Department of Labor for FLSA violations with regards to overtime regulations.

As per the investigation conducted by the Department of Labor, M.H. arranged the overtime hours put in by employees as straight time wages for future purposes. Therefore, employees could use these extra hours whenever they were short of 40 hours in a work week.

M.H. Electric deceived 65 of its workers and kept them from earning a time and a half whenever they worked more than the prescribed hours in a work week. Not only that, they violated the FLSA regulations.

As per the investigation report of the Department of Labor, it was found that the company violated overtime standards of FLSA and Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act in federally funded projects. The projects were related to the construction in Hawaii by the Hawaii Air National Guards and the U.S. Departments of the Navy, Army and Veterans Affairs between 2012 and 2014. The Davis-Bacon Act requires that contractors and subcontractors who perform work on federal and certain federally funded construction projects pay their laborers at least the prevailing wage rates associated with their occupation, as determined by the secretary of labor.

The company has been asked to pay $350k in back wages and damages to those 65 workers.