A Southern California construction company was recently found liable for $72,342 in back wages and liquidated damages by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) after investigators found that 12 employees were not paid for work performed before and after scheduled shifts.
Covello Plastering Corp., based in Calabasas, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to track work outside of normal business hours and “not paying required overtime rates,” a Jan. 5 DOL press release said.
“One hour worked should be one hour paid,” WHD District Director Kimchi Bui in Los Angeles said in the release. “It’s unjust and illegal to ask residential construction workers to do the hard work of building our homes and then deny them the wages they need to support themselves and their families.”
The department also ordered the company to pay $8,460 in penalties for the violations, including failing to maintain accurate employee records, the release said.
The investigation was part of the WHD’s ongoing Cross Regional Initiative, which addresses wage violations in the construction industry, the release said. Through the initiative, WHD has conducted 421 investigations in California recovering “more than $6 million in unpaid wages for more than 4,000 workers” since 2019.
“The Wage and Hour Division enforces the law regardless of a worker’s immigration status, and can speak confidentially with callers in more than 200 languages,” the release said.
