L.A. Garment Contractor Ordered to Pay Back Wages
After an extensive federal investigation, Reuben’s Garment Cutting and Marking paid 57 employees some $66,000 in back wages for overtime work that was not justly compensated.
Investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division discovered that between June 2004 and June 2006, the cutters, fusers, spreaders and bundlers working at the company’s two locations in Los Angeles and Monterey Park, Calif., did not receive overtime pay after working more than 40 hours a week. The company, whose president is Reuben Carrillo, also failed to properly record the hours of work for these employees, the Labor Department said. Investigators said the company used a second time card for each employee on Saturdays and paid employees in cash for work performed that day.
“This action reflects the Department of Labor’s commitment to protect overtime rights and ensure that workers receive the wages they have earned,” said George Friday Jr., a regional administrator in San Francisco for the department’s Wage and Hour Division, in a statement released Feb. 12. “In this case, the employees were not properly paid for all the hours they worked.”
The Wage and Hour Division heard about these unjust pay practices through a hotline at (877) 552-9832, which is set up for employees with work-related concerns.
The Wage and Hour Division has a Web site at www.wagehour.dol.gov, which provides information about the Fair Labor Standards Act. —Deborah Belgum
