Since 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor has investigated and recovered more than $5 million in damages and back wages for more than 300 San Diego area customs warehouse, logistics, and freight forwarding employees. Companies that operate along the U.S. and Mexican border frequently exploit Mexican nationals who may not know their workplace wage and hour rights, including reporting labor violations without suffering retaliation.
For example, the U.S. Department of Labor recently recovered a total of almost $840,000 from three companies operating in the San Diego area after Ruffo de Alba Forwarders LP, SAI Logistics Exports Inc., and Moving Technologies of America Inc. — were found to have paid their employees substantially less than the minimum wage. Some workers were allegedly paid as little as $2.77 per hour, even though the both the federal and California minimum wage rates have not been approximately that low since 1979.
These allegations constitute unlawful wage theft. The U.S. Department of Labor has demonstrated in these cases that it is committed to bring companies in customs broker, warehouse, and logistics into compliance with wage and hour laws. Hopefully this work will discourage the trend of companies taking advantage of people who are not American citizens in the U.S.’s border regions.