Then, last week, after finding the company and its owners to be in contempt for not paying the damages as ordered in the 2007 ruling, a federal judge smacked the cleaning company with another $277,791 in post-judgment interest, calculated at 4.44 percent from the original summary judgment’s date. Additionally, the judge ordered fines of $2,000 per day against the cleaning company and $200 each per day against Maldonado and Rubio for every day the back wages aren’t paid in full.

A district office of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in West Covina, Cal., first heard complaints about the way the cleaning company treated its employees when it took part in the Employment Education and Outreach (EMPLEO) – a coalition of private organizations and government agencies that helps Hispanic workers and employers with labor issues and concerns.

An investigation by the DOL turned up multiple minimum wage and overtime violations. Additionally, company managers did not keep accurate records of employee hours worked.

“The Department of Labor will not hesitate to take action to ensure workers receive the compensation they have worked hard for and earned,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement last Thursday.

Solis, who was born in California to immigrant working class parents from Nicaragua and Mexico, was named as the Plaintiff in the case, filed in July 2006 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Speaking at the Forum of the Workers of the Americas in Trinidad, Solis suggested her agency would finally be able to ramp up its investigations of companies that treat their employees unfairly and illegally.

Solis served eight years in Congress during the Bush Administration before President Obama nominated her as Labor Secretary. She told the assembly in Trinidad that she had battled injustice for too long. “For eight years I have struggled under hardship in an administration that was not for, in my opinion, putting people – working class people – first. That did not put education first,” Solis said.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › California maid company fined for ignoring 2007 ruling

According to the Palm Beach Post, the plaintiffs alleged that the club “operated an illegal tip pool knowingly” and with “reckless disregard for the law.” Despite their courtroom victory, however, the plaintiffs failed to persuade the jury of those counts.

An attorney for the poker dealers told the Palm Beach Post that a federal judge will determine how much back pay will be awarded to each dealer, estimating that the total amount would reach $130,000 plus attorney’s fees. Most of the plaintiffs are no longer employed at the Kennel Club.

The ruling will likely boost earnings for card dealers in other Florida clubs where money is commonly skimmed from card dealer tips to pay floor supervisors. According to the plantiffs’ attorney, some dealers could go from making $40,000 to $70,000 with full tips.

The attorney told the Post that the club was “stealing the wages that somebody earned. Period. So their bottom line wouldn’t be affected.”

“They were taking from somebody without them knowing it and giving it to somebody who didn’t deserve it,” he told the Post.

Federal labor regulations allow businesses to pay employees less than minimum wage if the employees “customarily and regularly receive tips.” Attorneys representing the dealers successfully argued that because the club paid dealers $3 below the minimum wage, it shouldn’t have claimed tips to compensate supervisors “who had no direct service contact with the public.”

The Palm Beach Kennel Club is an established dog racing track dating back to 1932. The club also offers simulcast racing, a poker room, and dining options.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Card dealers win labor case against Palm Beach club

Hourly wage workers from Tyson’s slaughterhouses in Holcomb and Emporia, Kansas, originally filed the case in May 1006. Together, the Kansas operations employ some 3,300 hourly workers. The workers allege that Tyson owes them millions of dollars in back pay for all the time they spend on the job.

The key issue in the case is whether Tyson should have to compensate workers for all of the time they spend putting on and removing protective gear, cleaning equipment, waiting for production lines to start, walking to and from work, break, and changing quarters, and working on unpaid meal breaks.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the workers are seeking compensation for overtime. They are also seeking compensation for unpaid “straight time” at work under the Kansas Wage Payment Act.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under the Fair Labor Standards Act, production workers must be compensated for doing anything that is “integral and indispensable” to the “principal activity” of the job they perform.

The ruling influenced Lungstrom’s decision last year to reject a motion by Tyson for summary judgment. In doing so, Lungstrum “ruled that whether standard protective clothing was ‘integral and indispensable’ to Tyson employees’ work was a factual question for a jury to decide,” according to a report in the Kansas City Star.

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Class action lawsuit against Tyson Foods will proceed

A three-judge panel in Tuscaloosa agreed with a 2006 jury that found the Matthews, N.C.-based company in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and awarded back pay to 1,424 employees, who routinely worked 60 to 70 hours a week. Their duties often included mopping floors, unloading trucks, stocking shelves and running cash registers.

The jury “reasonably determined that Family Dollar failed to meet its burden of proving that Plaintiff store managers’ primary duty was management,” said Judge Frank M. Hull in a statement. He was joined by Judges Joel F. Dubina and Peter T. Fay.

Family Dollar (NYSE:FDO) operates 6,600 stores in 44 states, including Alabama. The discount chain offers low-cost products primarily to rural and small-town customers.

Birmingham attorney Allen Schreiber represented the plaintiffs.

SOURCE: Birmingham Business Journal

SOURCE: Fair Labor Standards Act › Tuscaloosa judges uphold $35M Family Dollar ruling