A Florida A/C company has shorted workers $490,000 in pay via repeated violations
Del-Air Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration isn’t cool with just paying employees what they’ve earned, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Sanford-based HVAC has violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) concerning paying employees so often from 1995-2020 that the agency took it to federal court after finding violations for the seventh time, Labor announced this past week. The consent judgment in Orlando federal court ordered Del-Air to pony up $334,307 in back pay to 212 workers, $1,576.92 per employee.
Six previous Wage and Hour Division investigations since 1995 uncovered Del-Air pay problems worth $155,865 to 440 workers, $354.24 per worker. With such a track record, after the federal court consent judgment, Wage and Hour slammed the company with an $82,616 civil penalty.
State records say Del-Air, registered with the state of Florida since 1983, is run by president/chief executive officer Robert Dello Russo and secretary and chief financial officer Thomas Margio. The company didn’t return a message left by a Herald reporter at its corporate offices on Tuesday.
Del-Air Heating & Air Conditioning’s most recent issues
Labor said the most recent investigation since 1995, completed in 2020 according to court documents, found that Del-Air:
▪ Paid installers by “piece-rate,” which is by the number of jobs done, no matter how many hours they worked to finish those jobs.
▪ Didn’t pay a warehouse manager earned overtime.
▪ Didn’t pay earned overtime to some employees and didn’t include earned bonuses in the overtime rate.
▪ Didn’t accurately record starts and ends of shifts.
“Del-Air Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Inc. has repeatedly ignored its responsibility to pay its workers all of their hard-earned wages and routinely broken the law,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Wildalí De Jesús. “We invite workers who believe they are not being paid legally and employers who are uncertain about their responsibilities to contact the Wage and Hour Division.”
The Wage and Hour complaint section of the Department of Labor website contains information on how to file a complaint. Miami’s Wage and Hour Division office can be reached at 305-598-6607. No matter the immigration or citizenship status, workers can speak with the department, which claims it can handle calls in more than 200 languages.
This story was originally published September 5, 2021 at 11:11 AM.
