CONCORD, NH – The owner of a Manchester flooring company must pay 33 current and former employees a total of $250,000 to resolve violations of overtime and anti-retaliation provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph N. Laplante, in his Oct. 2 judgment, ordered Christopher Coburn, owner of C & C Flooring LLC, 1600 Candia Road, to make the payments following a U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) investigation and litigation by the department’s Office of the Solicitor.
Payments range from $160 to $27,000. They include $240,000 in back wages and liquidated damages and another $10,000 in punitive damages.
The investigation determined Coburn, instead of paying employees time-and-a-half when they worked more than 40 hours in a week, paid them in cash, which was not recorded, and at straight time rates.
Coburn also “banked” some overtime hours, paid out later in workweeks at straight-time pay.
The company also failed to maintain accurate time records and retaliated against employees by asking them to provide false information to labor investigators.
Coburn’s rationale for paying employees in that way was that “employees wanted to be paid in those manners,” according to the complaint on file in U.S. District Court.
Under the judgment, C & C is required to rehire any workers covered by this case before hiring others, unless they can substantiate that the individuals were terminated for cause; provide current and future employees with notice of their FLSA rights and WHD fact sheets, and train supervisors and payroll personnel annually on compliance with the FLSA.
Coburn is also barred from giving himself or his wife, who is an employee, pay raises and is barred from transferring or encumbering their assets and property in specific ways.
“Employers must understand their responsibility to pay overtime, keep accurate records and refrain from retaliation against workers who exercise their legal rights. In this case, the workers will receive their back pay and damages, including punitive damages, and the employer has also paid a significant monetary penalty for the willful violations,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Daniel Cronin, in Manchester, in a prepared statement. “We encourage employers to use the wide variety of compliance tools we offer to explain those requirements, and to contact us for guidance.”
