Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the week ending on Friday, September 29
An Oklahoma construction contractor entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to pay $370,660 in criminal and civil penalties to avoid federal prosecution on one count of ignoring federal safety regulations that resulted in a worker fatality in St. Joseph in 2019.
The action follows an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration that found Skinner Tank Co. did not require employees to use fall protection while working on the roof of the 56-foot soybean storage tank, nor provide fall protection training. On Oct. 14, 2019, an employee on the roof died after falling more than 50 feet to the ground. OSHA’s inspection also revealed that the company provided inaccurate safety information to its employees by telling them that wearing fall protection actually presented a greater hazard than not wearing it.
After issuing civil citations, including willful violations for failing to require the use of fall protection and provide fall protection training, and proposing $415,204 in penalties, OSHA made a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice under the criminal provision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
Under the deferred prosecution agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri on September 5, 2023, Skinner Tank Co., must pay a monetary penalty to the United States Treasury of $175,000 and an OSHA penalty of $195,660.
In 2021, nearly one in five workplace deaths occurred in the construction industry. Just over one-third of construction deaths were due to falls, slips, and trips. Of these, almost all were from falls to a lower level. The construction industry accounted for 46.2 percent of all fatal falls, slips, and trips in 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
A U.S. Department of Labor investigation has recovered $120,695 in back wages for 24 employees after an Orlando franchisee of a Chicago-based pizza franchise denied the workers overtime wages and paid servers only in tips.
The department’s Wage and Hour Division found Sand Lake Pizzeria LLC, operator of a Giordano’s Pizza franchise location, did not pay servers a time-and-one-half rate for all hours over 40 in a workweek and made servers work for only tips with no cash wage, both violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The employer also failed to keep complete time and payroll records, another FLSA violation.
During the investigation, the employer told the division they contracted a third-party service provider to manage payroll functions and claimed the provider did not raise concerns about the employer’s pay practices.
Waste Pro of Florida, a waste collection, recycling, processing and disposal company based in Longwood, Florida, violated federal law when it subjected Black employees to racist slurs and then retaliated against them for complaining about the behavior, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.
According to the filing, Waste Pro employees at its Jacksonville location regularly used the N-word in front of Black employees, including a white employee telling a Black Haitian American, “Go back to Haiti N*****,” and “Y’all don’t belong here,” and “go back on the banana boat,” and other racial slurs. After an employee complained, a stuffed monkey waiving an American flag was left in his work area and Waste Pro retaliated against him for reporting the discrimination.
The EEOC filed its suit against Waste Pro in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
Gregg Orr Auto Collection, Inc., a company that provides administrative and operations services for a group of related automobile dealerships across Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Florida, violated federal law when it fired a longtime senior manager in its Texarkana, Texas, location to avoid its share of the employee’s cancer-treatment costs, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, on Feb. 11, 2020, Gregg Orr Auto fired the 65‑year-old employee without prior warning and informed him that his health insurance coverage would end, effective immediately. This came just weeks after the employee received billing statements for a costly surgery the employee underwent in late 2019 to treat a serious cancer. Gregg Orr Auto maintains a self-insured health care plan that makes it directly responsible for its employees’ medical expenses. The company knew that the employee’s cancer treatment would generate ongoing healthcare costs, and therefore replaced him with a significantly younger worker in his mid-30s, the EEOC said.
The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas after its Birmingham District Office unsuccessfully attempted to reach a pre‑litigation settlement through its conciliation process. The EEOC seeks monetary relief including back pay, liquidated, compensatory, and punitive damages, as well as injunctive relief designed to prevent such unlawful conduct in the future.
U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators recovered $37,529 in stolen health and welfare benefits from a Wendy’s franchise that it owed to 56 current and former employees by the employer, who violated federal contract labor regulations under the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act.
The EEOC alleges Hank’s Furniture in Pensacola, FL violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when it did not, but could have without undue hardship, accommodate an employee’s request for religious exemption to a COVID 19 vaccination mandate. This is interesting because I haven’t seen anything like this from the EEOC before.
The EEOC alleges that Cavco Industries and Palm Harbor Homes in Dallas, TX violated the Civil Rights Act when it subjected a worker to race-based harassment. Specifically, the worker experienced harassment and racial slurs after disclosing he had a multiracial family and after he refused to engage in conversations disparaging Black people. Afterward, the general manager referred to the employee’s family members using racial slurs and increased the use of racially disparaging remarks in the workplace. The sales consultant was sometimes left to serve Black customers, who were referred to by harassers as “his people.” A family member was referred to as a “mudshark.” Management also took actions that impacted the sales consultant’s sales, which resulted in a reduction of his commissions. Ultimately, Cavco Industries and Palm Harbor Homes fired the sales consultant because of his association with his Black and biracial family.
The US DOL’s Mine Safety and Health Administration completed impact inspections at 14 mines in 10 states in August, issuing 246 violations.
A U.S. Department of Labor workplace safety investigation found that a Caney contractor could have prevented a trench collapse that fatally injured a project manager at a McAlester work site in Oklahoma City, OK in May 2023. The agency has proposed $82,149 in penalties.
A US District Court Judge ordered Sypris Solutions to restore $575,000 to the retirement savings plan after it failed to follow its own governing documents regarding the use of forfeiture funds for several of its 401k plans.
The EEOC is suing Asphalt Paving Systems for race based discrimination and harassment. The EEOC alleges that black workers were subjected to the open use of racial slurs and racist comments, including the “n-word” by employees and managers. Black employees were also subjected to demeaning working conditions, such as being required to work without breaks while white employees watched, and being forced to relieve themselves outdoors while white employees were taken to indoor bathrooms. Additionally, APS prevented members of an African American paving crew from finding alternative employment by contacting a future employer and requesting that they not hire them.
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