On June 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced that a federal judge upheld the DOL’s finding that an out-of-state construction company operating in California discriminated against U.S. workers by bringing Mexican workers to the U.S. under false pretenses, underpaying them, and lodging them in substandard living conditions.
The DOL’s Office of Administrative Law Judges ordered the owners of R&R Christo Construction LLC to pay $288,719 in wages to 43 Mexican workers. The DOL found that most of the workers worked up to 60 hours per week but were not paid overtime wages for work over eight hours a day and 40 hours in a week. The employers’ practices were illegal under federal and California law because H-2A workers are not exempt from the applicable minimum wage and overtime laws.
The employers also had to pay $63,813 in penalties because they allegedly misrepresented on their H-2A agricultural visa program application that the workers were for agriculture work, but the workers were employed for construction jobs. The DOL learned about the employers’ practices after a referral from a Cal/OSHA investigation into injuries suffered by a H-2A worker who fell from a roof while being illegally “loaned” to roofing subcontractors for more profits.
See Link(s): California Labor Code Sections 1194 and 1194.2; 29 USCA Sections 206 and 207; https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20240612)