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ESA-WHD New Release: [01/19/2000]
Contact Name: Tino Serrano
Phone Number: 415-975-4742
Release Number: USDL-10
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ROOFER MUST PAY BACK WAGES OF $105,000
SAN FRANCISCO -- The operator of a Downey-based roofing company that operates throughout Southern California has signed a consent judgment ordering the payment of $105,000 in back wages to settle a federal complaint that the company failed to pay employees for all hours worked.
Ray DeBrouwer, operator of Stout Roofing, Inc., with main offices at 9705 Washburn Road, signed the consent judgment in U.S. District Court to settle charges that the company failed to pay employees for some work hours worked after forty, which violated federal overtime rules. Failure to pay "overtime" is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act which requires, among other things, that employees be paid no less than one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for any work hours in excess of forty within a seven-day work week.
Stout employees are engaged in the installation, maintenance and repair of commercial roofing projects throughout the southern part of the state. Federal compliance officers with the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division found that the roofers were paid only for time actually spent working on the roofs of buildings and were not compensated for time spent on other necessary tasks such as loading and unloading materials, job site clean-up, and travel time such as between jobs or between job sites and company offices.
The back wages will compensate 100 employees for work performed during a two-year period ending in August 1998.
The investigation of Stout Roofing, Inc. was conducted by the West Covina office of the Wage and Hour Division under the supervision of then acting district director Eric Murray. The Wage and Hour Division enforces federal regulations on minimum wage, overtime and child labor; special wage and hour requirements for federal contractors; wage garnishment and the protection of migrant and seasonal farm workers. In addition to its enforcement efforts, the agency provides information and education programs to inform employers of their rights and responsibilities in order to foster understanding and compliance.
Workers and employers with questions about their wages and work hours can call the Wage and Hour office in West Covina at 626-966-0478. The office has multilingual staff which can provide information in several languages.
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