Florida A/C company shorts workers $57,000 in pay. Not cool, Labor Dept. says
A Tampa air conditioning maintenance and installation company paid $57,018 in back wages after a Department of Labor investigation found the company ignored a few parts of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Simpson Mechanical, which operates as Simpson Air, owed that $57,018 to 35 workers, an average of $1,629 per worker.
Simpson got caught by Wage and Hour investigators:
▪ Not giving workers credit for time spent loading trucks and going between jobs. Simpson didn’t record the time spent (record-keeping violation) and didn’t pay workers for that time.
▪ Not paying some overtime-eligible workers flat salaries, no matter how many hours they worked.
▪ Not including other “additional compensation” earned at regular pay rates when figuring out overtime pay.
According to state records, Simpson registered to do business in Florida in 1999 and has been run by Garry Simpson, Paige Fisher Simpson and Fred Fisher since at least 2000.
“Simply paying workers by the job, or on a salary, doesn’t mean they’re not entitled to overtime, nor does it mean that employers don’t have to track the hours those employees work,” Wage and Hour District Director James Schmidt said.
To deal with overtime and minimum wage violations without litigation, employers can self-report via the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program.
