Arizona drywall firms ordered to pay over $7.4M in back wages, damages

The Division of Labor has obtained a judgment ordering two Arizona drywall and portray corporations to pay $7.45 million in again wages and damages after the employers willfully denied overtime pay to over 1,400 staff, in response to a division information launch.

The Jan. 15 judgment by the U.S. District Court docket of Arizona adopted an investigation by the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, which discovered Apodaca Wall Methods and Empire Wall Methods had violated the Honest Labor Requirements Act.

The businesses, owned by Arnold Apodaca and his youngsters, Michael and Brittany Apodaca, allegedly tried to keep away from paying additional time wages by paying hourly staff with a number of checks at straight-time charges for all hours labored. In addition they used labor brokers to rent hourly employees, whom they paid in case even when they labored over 40 hours in a workweek, per the division. 

The businesses, which carry out drywall and portray work on business jobs, additionally paid a chunk fee primarily based on sq. ft accomplished to employees exterior the corporate’s payroll with out regard to the precise variety of hours labored, the DOL alleged. Crew leads acquired, then redistributed, the pay to these employees, denying their legally owed additional time pay. In Arizona, employees are entitled to 1.5 instances their regular hourly fee for each hour labored over 40 hours in every week.

“Piece-rate employees are entitled to premium pay for additional time hours,” Marc Pilotin, DOL western regional solicitor, mentioned within the launch. “These corporations purposely cheated employees and harm their communities by violating federal regulation intentionally and are actually studying unlawful actions like these have expensive penalties.”

Along with the fee of about $3.7 million in additional time again wages and an equal quantity in liquidated damages, the judgment forces the companies to pay the division $125,000 in penalties.

Apodaca Wall Methods has carried out drywall and portray work on banks, church buildings, leisure venues, medical buildings, workplaces, eating places, faculties and retail facilities within the Southwest, per its web site. 

Apodaca Wall Methods didn’t reply to Building Dive’s request for remark. Empire Wall Methods has no publicly out there contact info, and couldn’t be reached for remark by time of publication.