Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

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BOSTON -- Ramon Forestry Service of Clinton, Maine, and owner Baldemar Ramon have admitted to maintaining materially false payroll records for the migrant forestry workers they employed in Maine last year and have paid the workers $60,000 in back wages to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA). The defendants, registered farm labor contractors, have also agreed to pay the Labor Department $10,000 in penalties for violating the two federal labor laws.

According to George Rioux, district director for the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division in northern New England, an investigation by his office revealed that Ramon Forestry Service failed to properly pay 34 migrant workers from Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico for all the hours they worked. The migrant workers were performing reforestation work in the vicinity of Portage, Maine, from mid-June to mid-August 2004.

Among the violations alleged in the Labor Department’s lawsuit, filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, were: falsifying payroll records; failing to pay employees properly for overtime hours worked; failing to provide migrant agricultural workers accurate records of the number of hours worked, the specific sums withheld from their pay and the purpose of each sum withheld; and providing false or misleading information to workers regarding the terms and conditions of their employment.

Signed Feb. 14 by Chief U.S. District Judge George Z. Singal, the judgment prohibits the defendants from future violations of the FLSA and MSPA, and orders them to maintain all vehicles used for transportation of migrant agricultural workers in compliance with applicable federal and state safety standards. The judgment includes a formal admission from the defendants that they kept false payroll records and notes that they have paid $60,000 in back wages and have agreed to pay a $5,000 civil money penalty for violations of the FLSA and an additional $5,000 penalty for violations of MSPA.

The FLSA requires that covered employees be paid at least the applicable minimum wage as well as one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 per week. The law also requires that accurate records of employees’ wages, hours and other conditions of employment be maintained. The MSPA provides additional protections for temporary agricultural workers.

“This court action,” said Rioux, “demonstrates that the Labor Department is serious about enforcing the federal laws that protect low-wage, migrant workers from being used by employers who would go so far as to falsify payroll records in order to avoid paying them properly.”

The Bangor, Maine, office of the Wage and Hour Division conducted this investigation and the department’s lawsuit was filed by the Regional Solicitor’s Office in Boston. For more information about the provisions of the FLSA, call the Department of Labor’s toll-free help line at 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243). Information is also available on the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov.

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U.S. Department of Labor releases are accessible on the Internet at www.dol.gov. The information in this news release will be made available in alternate format (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COAST office upon request. Please specify which news release when placing your request at (202) 693-7828 or TTY (202) 693-7755. The Labor Department is committed to providing America’s employers and employees with easy access to understandable information on how to comply with its laws and regulations. For more information, please visit www.dol.gov/compliance.