The U.S. Department of Labor has secured a consent judgment recovering $550,000 in back wages and damages for 614 employees of a Las Vegas construction company whose wage practices denied workers their full pay.
The judgment from the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, which found that Colvin Construction Inc. attempted to avoid paying overtime by not accounting for all hours worked by employees. Although workers typically worked an average of 55 hours per week, investigators discovered that the employer did not pay the required overtime rate of one and a half times the regular pay rate for all hours over 40 in a workweek, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
In addition to recovering $275,000 in unpaid wages and an equal amount in damages for the workers, the judgment orders Colvin Construction to pay $10,000 in penalties due to the nature of the violations and permanently prohibits future FLSA violations.
The judgment also requires Colvin Construction to:
- Accurately record all hours worked by employees, their rates of pay, their hourly rates, total weekly earnings for regular time, and payment for overtime hours.
- Implement a timekeeping system allowing workers, not supervisors, to individually monitor their hours worked.
- Maintain all piecework and employment records for no less than three years.
“The U.S. Department of Labor is determined to uphold construction workers' rights to receive their full wages and will use every tool available to achieve justice,” said Gene Ramos, District Director of the Wage and Hour Division in Las Vegas. “Employers cannot evade paying overtime by deliberately ignoring how many hours their employees work. Our investigation’s results ensured this employer complied with standards, leveled the playing field, and recovered workers’ wages.”
The Wage and Hour Division’s Las Vegas District Office conducted the investigation. The Regional Solicitor’s Office in San Francisco obtained the court judgment.
“This judgment reflects our commitment to doing everything possible to protect workers' rights to receive their full earnings in Nevada's construction industry,” explained Marc Pilotin, Regional Solicitor in San Francisco. “Thanks to this case's outcome, hundreds of piece-rate construction workers will receive back wages and an equivalent amount in damages for what they endured.”
Founded in Nevada in 2014, Colvin Construction provides drywall services to residential and commercial clients.
Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool you can use if you think there is money recovered by the division or how to file an online complaint. For confidential compliance assistance, employees and employers can call the agency’s helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243), regardless of who they are or where they come from. The division can communicate in more than 200 languages.
Download the agency’s Timesheet App for iOS and Android devices—available in English and Spanish—to ensure your hours and payments are correct.
This press release is also available in English.
