(CBS-DETROIT) – A Mexican specialty store and restaurant in Pontiac must pay $192,500 in back wages, damages and fines after illegally denying employees overtime pay, officials said.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has determined that Carnival Market Inc. did not pay the overtime of 14 employees between October 2018 and September 2020.
According to officials, after initially agreeing to reimburse wages for overtime violations in 2020, Carnival Market asked five employees to repay their back wages and threatened them if they refused to comply. Investigators say Carnival Market allegedly told its employees not to talk to investigators or tell them there were labor violations.
“The U.S. Department of Labor will not allow employers to retaliate against employees in an effort to prevent their cooperation in federal investigations,” said Regional Labor Attorney Christine Z. Heri. “Employers who fail to meet their legal obligation to pay employees their rightfully earned wages and violate employees’ rights to participate in a federal investigation will be held accountable under the law.”
The Wage and Hour Division conducted a second investigation from January 2021 to January 2023 and found that employers continued to violate the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay some employees who were required to pay overtime and paying non-exempt bakery workers on a salary basis without compensation for overtime.
“Employers who short-change their workers also hurt local economies by reducing the amounts employees can spend each day,” explains Timolin Mitchell, director of Detroit’s Wage and Hour Division District. “Wage theft is a common problem, especially for low-wage workers who may be afraid to question their employers’ pay practices or share their concerns with authorities. We encourage employees with questions about their rights to contact the Wage and Hour Department. can speak to us anonymously if necessary and in one of the many languages that our employees understand.”
Carnival Market must pay $5,000 in compensatory damages for retaliation against employees during the 2020 investigation, $5,000 for violating the overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as $182,500, amounting to $91,250 in back wages and an equal amount in damages. 12 employees who were not paid overtime for two years.
