MANUFACTURING
Dept. of Labor Recovers More Than $1.5 Million for Southern California Garment Workers
More than $1.5 million in back wages and unpaid overtime were recovered for 668 Southern California garment-industry workers, the federal government announced.
The wages were recuperated by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division during the 2018 fiscal year after several investigations.
DOL investigators found that a group of Southern California employers not only paid below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour but also often failed to pay employees overtime when the workers labored more than 40 hours per week. The minimum wage in California is $10.50 an hour for smaller companies and $11 an hour for larger companies. In Los Angeles County, the minimum wage is $12 an hour for smaller companies and $13.25 an hour for larger companies with 26 or more employees.
The DOL recovered $61,765 for 18 employees of Los Angeles–area vendor DAWA Fashion. The company failed to pay the federal minimum wage and overtime. DAWA also used a computer program to falsify pay records, the government said.
Other companies forced to pay back wages, overtime and record-keeping violations included Los Angeles vendor Casa Q. The DOL recouped $54,211 from the company. Valle Fashion paid $49,974 it owed in back wages and overtime to 32 employees. The vendor KIT paid $32,623 it owed to 11 employees, said Ruben Rosalez, the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division regional administrator.
“We still find high rates of noncompliance even after years of strong education and outreach efforts balanced with targeted enforcement in the garment industry,” Rosalez said. “These employees are regularly denied minimum wage and overtime for the long, hard hours they put in on the job. All those in the industry need to recognize that if the price they pay for production done in the U.S. is too low, it can cause egregious minimum-wage and overtime violations, unfairly undercutting their competition.”
