After a labor investigation, a Pontiac Mexican supermarket will pay $192,500 in back wages, damages, and penalties.
Carnival Market Inc. is a Mexican specialty supermarket and restaurant that the Department of Labor has investigated regarding employee wages and overtime.
It has been found that the location’s owners illegally denied workers overtime wages and later demanded some workers transfer their wages and damages to them.
Mexican restaurant to pay $192,500 in back wages
“The U.S. Department of Labor will not allow employers to retaliate against workers in an effort to prevent their cooperation with federal investigations,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Christine Z. Heri.
This is not the first offense by Carnival Market; in 2020, the Wage and Hour Division discovered overtime violations by failing to pay “14 employees required overtime wages for hours worked over 40 in a week between October 2018 and September 2020,” said the report.
Carnival Market had made obligations to the investigators, agreeing to pay employees back wages for overtime violations. It resulted in the owners of Carnival Market bullying some staff, five in total, “kick back their wages and threatened them if they refused.”
As part of the most recent investigation, the report found from staff that the owners instructed “employees not to speak to investigators or to tell investigators there were no violations.”
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan decided a judgment that requires the restaurant and its owners to pay $192,500 in back wages, liquidated damages, compensatory damages, and civil money penalties immediately.
While discussing the Chicago case, Heri concluded, “Employers who fail in their legal obligation to pay workers their rightfully earned wages and violate workers’ rights to participate in a federal investigation will be held accountable under the law.”
In addition to paying the back wages, damages and penalties, Carnival Market must also “audit and verify its current compliance with federal wage regulations, conduct FLSA training for managers, distribute and post fact sheets regarding workers’ federal rights, and provide records to the Wage and Hour Division, upon request, for at least two years,” said the resulting report of the Michigan court’s decision.
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