The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced an Idaho stone quarry has been ordered to pay almost $1 million in back pay to 60 workers.
According to a Nov. 29 news release, Oakley-based quarry Northern Stone Supply Inc. has been ordered to pay $983,725 in back wages and liquidated damages to the workers after an investigation found the company deprived 60 workers of their legally earned wages, breaking several federal labor laws in the process.
“The H-2B program provides employers the ability to hire foreign workers after unsuccessfully trying to hire U.S.-based workers,” Wage and Hour Division Regional Director Ruben Rosalez in San Francisco said in the release. “This employer violated the rights of domestic workers through preferential hiring and shortchanged their H-2B guest workers. The Department of Labor will continue to hold employers accountable when they disregard the law and ensure that workers get the wages they have earned.”
The investigation found Northern Stone violated several regulations of the H-2B temporary foreign nonagricultural worker program regulations and the Fair Labor Standards Act. The company allegedly offered more hours to their H-2B workers at less pay, misclassified their workers as lower-paying job designations, failed to keep proper employee earnings records, failed to provide necessary equipment for workers to perform the work free of charge and even failed to provide a copy of the job order for workers, according to the release.
“Employers relying on H-2B guest workers must fulfill the terms of their contracts under the H-2B program to avoid undermining working conditions for U.S. workers,” Regional Solicitor Marc Pilotin in San Francisco, Calif., said, according to the release. “Breaking contractual promises to H-2B workers to pay the lawful wage ultimately reduces the wages domestic workers will earn to do the same work. The department will hold employers like Northern Stone Supply accountable when they violate the employment standards for all workers.”
Northern Stone and its owner Gregory Osterhout has been ordered to pay $373,608 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to the affected workers. A separate case ordered the employer to pay $236,509 in back wages and also imposed $50,000 in civil money penalties for the company's willful violations of the H-2B program, the release reported.
