An Oklahoma turf farmer must pay $72,000 in back wages and damages after a federal investigation found the company misapplied a tax exemption and failed to compensate his workers for overtime, the U.S. Department of Labor said.
The Department of Labor has ordered Robert K. Cook III, manager of Rob’s Sod Inc., and Cook’s Farmland Enterprises LLC, operating as Green Acre Sod Farm, Green Acre Sod and Landscape Center and Enterprise Sod and Landscape Center, to pay $56,302 in past due to pay wages for unpaid overtime compensation and an additional $15,698 in damages, according to a judgment and order.
“While we disagree with the DOL, we are pleased to resolve this matter and put it behind us,” said Robert B. Sartin, a Barrow & Grimm attorney representing the defendants in the case.
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The company includes several Oklahoma businesses, including Green Acre Sod Farm, where the Department of Labor found that Cook misapplied the agricultural exemption — a tax break offered to industry employers for overtime — to underpay workers for working of more than 40 hours in one working week at the Bixby. -based acreage.
“Employers should be familiar with the federal regulations that apply to their business and ensure that employees are paid as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act,” said Michael Speer, district director of the Labor Department, Wage and Hour Division, in a news release . The Wage and Hour Division is committed to holding employers accountable when they fail to meet their legal obligations to pay employees in full for the work they do.”
Speer said the employer in this case hired both farm workers who worked in the fields and tended the turf, as well as retail workers who worked in a store on the farm. The investigation found that Cook applied the same tax exemption to both field and retail workers. Once employees enter the store and the majority of their labor focuses on selling products, the tax exemption no longer applies.
“They made a mistake and didn’t pay the employees who worked in retail,” he said. “The exemption has a very low tolerance. There is no percentage requirement, not even an hours requirement. Once you don’t work in agriculture, you can lose that overtime exemption.”
Twenty employees at the Bixby farm worked overtime without just compensation, leading to a judgment last October in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma against the company, its subsidiaries and Cook.
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Among their various aliases are Rob’s Sod Inc. and Cook’s Farmland Enterprises LLC operating throughout Oklahoma, in Grove, Lawton, Owasso and Stillwater. Green Acre Sod Farm operates 10,000 acres in Bixby and Haskell, Oklahoma, and another 2,000 acres in Mount Vernon, Missouri, the states where the company’s ten stores are located. The turf supplier also owns 6,000 acres on the Red River in Texas.
Cases like these led the Labor Department to develop a campaign pushing workers to get compensation, which the department collects after investigation, and encouraging people to use Workers Owed Wages, or WOW, an online tool to recover unpaid wages.
Oklahoma owes a total of $1,301,876 in unpaid wages to 1,652 employees, the department said in a news release.
Resources can be found at http://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/wow.
State, federal laws
Oklahoma’s minimum wage and overtime pay follow the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires employees to be paid 1.5 times the regular hourly rate for all hours they work over 40 in a workweek, according to the Labor Department.
However, states can also reject federal changes to the law.
On November 15, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas struck down the Department of Labor’s final rule on minimum wage and overtime regulations.
The Labor Department plans to appeal the Texas court’s decision, the department said.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma zod business ordered to pay $72,000 in unpaid wages, DOL offers relief
