A Massachusetts landscaping contractor must pay $283,020 in back wages and liquidated damages to 19 workers after the company violated overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
A federal judge entered a consent order for Salem company Belko Landscaping LLC, operating in southern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts, after investigators found it paid workers straight-time rates for overtime hours worked and failed to record work hours accurately, according to a June 2 Department of Labor release.
“As this case shows, the cost of violating the law can be high for employers who willfully deny workers the wages they have earned,” the U.S. Department of Labor's Regional Solicitor of Labor Maia Fisher said, according to the release. "In cases such as this, the department will seek to hold employers accountable for paying their workers the wages they owe them and seek an equal amount in liquidated damages because the employees have been without use of their hard-earned wages for a period of time."
The landscaping company and its president, John Belko, also had to pay $14,231 in civil penalties due to the willful nature of the violations, the release said.
Fisher said, in these types of cases, the Labor Department seeks an equal amount of damages as it holds employers accountable to pay the wages they owed because the employees had their wages withheld for a period of time, the release said.
“Unfortunately, these types of violations are common in the landscaping services industry,” Wage and Hour District Director Steven McKinney in Manchester, N.H., said, according to the release. “We encourage employers to contact the Wage and Hour Division about their responsibilities and workers to contact the agency with questions about their rights.”
