By Peter Jasinski
UPDATED: 10/31/2018 02:40:51 PM EDT
BOSTON — A Leominster construction company has been ordered to pay $837,341 in restitution and penalties for making illegal deductions from worker paychecks following the second investigation in less than three years of allegations the company was violating labor laws.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Wednesday that Force Corporation and its managers, Juliano Fernandes, Anderson Dos Santos, and Claudio Cicero Da Silva have been issued two civil citations for failing to make timely payment of wages and failure to furnish payroll records to the AG’s office.
“Force Corporation and its managers cheated their construction workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Healey in a written statement. “To build this case, our team documented the use of dozens of illegal tricks used by employers to steal from workers.”
This most recent investigation began after state officials received several complaints from the New England Regional Council of Carpenters.
The AG’s investigation revealed that Force Corporation has been regularly taking illegal deductions from employees weekly wages to pay for tools, safety equipment, and advances in what Healey referred to as a “textbook example of wage theft.”
The investigation also showed that Force unlawfully required employees to purchase their own tools through a company owned by Fernandes, one of Force’s managers.
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The company was found in willful violation of federal labor laws and ordered to pay nearly $2.4 million back wages and damages to 478 employees in 2016 and $262,000 in fines for violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
According to an investigation by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, Force Corporation created a separate company, AB Construction Group of Framingham, as a way to provide Force with employers but classify them as independent contractors. This misclassification led to the company failing to pay employees overtime and keep accurate time and payroll records.