A Burbank business kept nearly half a million dollars from more than 100 workers as overtime pay, then lied to investigators and said that the employees did not work overtime hours, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday.
The Rodin Group, a paint and wall-covering company, paid more than $481,000 to the DOL after investigators found that 117 “employees worked on weekends routinely and, on occasion, worked double shifts on weekdays to exceed 40 hours in a workweek,” the DOL said in a news release.
The workers who were paid overtime were paid that amount in cash, and the Rodin Group did not “record or pay employees for required hours spent in travel and replenishing supplies,” the release said. As a result of these “willful violations,” the Rodin Group was charged more than $55,000 in civil penalties.
“Our investigation found The Rodin Group deliberately tried to deny more than 100 employees their hard-earned wages, including overtime wages when some employees worked as many as 72 hours of overtime,” said Wage and Hour Division Assistant District Director Francisco Ocampo in Los Angeles. “The employers have learned that misleading investigators will not be tolerated and that willful violations can lead to significant damages and civil money penalties.”
If you have labor and wage questions, employers and workers can call the division confidentially with questions, regardless of their immigration status and in more than 200 languages, through the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243).