A residential builder in Frisco, Texas, has received a large bill for unpaid overtime wages after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Department’s Wage and Hour Division found that Northland Development of Texas, Inc. paid its employees at the standard pay rate instead of the required time-and-a-half rate when they worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.
Additionally, Northland deducted more than the actual time taken for lunch, underreporting any overtime worked. The U.S. Labor Department found that the company owed a total of $163,648 to forty-seven employees.
“Too often, the Wage and Hour Division encounters employers who underreport employees’ hours of work and undercut competitors by failing to pay full wages as the law requires,” said Jesus A. Valdez, director of the Wage & Hour Division for Dallas. “In the end, these violations proved very costly. We encourage employers with questions about overtime or other wage requirements to use our online tools or contact us for confidential compliance assistance.”
In 2021, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division completed over 3,000 construction industry investigations and retrieved $36 million in back wages for more than 21,000 workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The Fair Labor Standards Act established minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in federal, state, and local governments.
“We were notified of a clerical error by the Department of Labor and can confirm this error was immediately addressed by our team,” said Tom Gaglardi, the owner of Northland Properties, the parent company of Northland Development. “Working closely with the Department of Labor, we promptly paid all amounts owed to our employees and corrected our accounting process with no fines or actions against Northland Developers.”
Workers can call the Wage and Hour Division at 866-487-9243 confidentially with questions at any point, regardless of their immigration status, or learn more about the Wage and Hour Division on the website.