May 11, 2020 10:21 am
The company hired to paint portions of Allegiant Stadium is alleged to be “a repeat violator of the FLSA (Federal Labor Standards Act)” according to a U.S. District judge citing a Department of Labor complaint against Unforgettable Coatings, its owner Cory Summerhays and his partners for failing to pay overtime.
The DOL, which filed a complaint against Summerhays and the others on March 12, filed a similar complaint in 2013, that resulted in an order that Summerhays make good on overtime owed to employees.
“Instead of coming into compliance, it appears that Defendants then devised a new set of procedures to obscure its continued failure to pay overtime and then commenced a campaign to deter their workers from speaking truthfully to government investigators,” U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson wrote last month when he enjoined the company from cutting pay and from firing workers in alleged retaliation for cooperating with investigators.
“Defendants have tried not only to silence their workers, but also to actively manipulate them to provide false information to the government’s investigators,” Dawson’s order says. “When workers are first hired, Defendants advise them that they will not be paid overtime premiums, but they will make a flat $12 to $25 per hour – not minimum wage.”
“DOL investigators showed Defendants’ pay stubs demonstrating how an individual worker’s gross pay, when divided by the number of hours worked, always showed the worker being paid the worker’s straight time regular rate for all his hours worked – regardless of the number of overtime hours worked.”
“Wage theft is a rampant problem in the non-union construction industry and it drives down standards for all workers,” says the Laborers International Union of North America.
Between 2010 and today, the DOL has recovered more than $19 million in back wages from 1,615 employers in Nevada.
Taxpayers are often on the hook for providing services when workers don’t receive wages to which they are entitled.
The cost to taxpayers of providing Medicaid to Unforgettable Coatings’ eligible employees and family members in Nevada was $93,703 in fiscal year 2018, according to an annual report required by the Legislature.