The Department of Labor recovered $132,506 in back wages and damages from a tortilla manufacturer that failed to pay its workers at a now-shuttered facility in Baldwin, California, according to an Oct. 7 news release.
A Wage and Hour Division investigation found La Flor de Mexico failed to pay 72 employees minimum wage for all the hours they worked, as well as overtime, violating federal labor law.
The DOL began investigating La Flor de Mexico from May 6 to May 17 after Univision Los Angeles aired a news segment on the labor violation in May. The company, which made and supplied wheat, corn, oat and multigrain tortillas as well as lavash and flatbread, told its 80-plus employees to come to work for a month despite not being paid, Skarleth Kozlo, Wage and Hour Division Assistant district director in West Covina, California, told Manufacturing Dive.
Workers also told DOL that facility owner Stan Wetch sold the machinery and shuttered the factory in May with no notice, Kozlo said.
Staffing firm Employee Force Provider, which hired most of La Flor’s workers, told Univision that Wetch had promised to pay the employees, which did not happen.
The recovered funds include $66,253 in back wages, which is almost two weeks of pay, for 72 workers at the Baldwin facility operated by La Flor de Mexico, according to the release. Some of the other workers either left the factory or got paid by another staffing firm before DOL began the investigation, Kozlo said.
The agency also recovered $66,253 in liquidated damages, which is due to a lack of good faith defense, Kozlos said. In other words, Wetch willfully chose not to pay his workers, versus an attorney advising him not to pay.
“If someone had told the owner, ‘Yeah, don't pay them the overtime, and it was an attorney, then that would be their good faith defense for not paying, and then we would take that into consideration and not apply the liquidated damages,” Kozlos said. “But since they had no good faith defense, the liquidated damages are applicable.”
The agency also found the tortilla maker had a joint employment relationship with Employee Force Provider. The company hired the staffing firm to find workers for the facility. Due to a new regulation under the National Labor Relations Act implemented last year, Employee Force Provider is jointly responsible for paying back the due wages, Kozlo said.
The previous version of the rule allowed employers to hide their joint status, avoiding responsibility, according to the NLRB.
Wetch and Employee Force Provider did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
