AG Cites Westborough Trash Hauler for Miscalculating Prevailing Wage

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has cited a Westborough trash hauler more than $200,000 in restitution and penalties for miscalculating the prevailing wage.

paid employees $187,422.93 in restitution after Coakley's Fair Labor Division investigated complaints received last December, the attorney general's office said in a recent press release.

The firm "fully cooperated with the investigation," according to the release.

"The underpayments were the result of an inadvertent error in calculating the value of health and welfare benefits, which under the prevailing wage statute, can be credited toward meeting the prevailing wage," the release says.

"E.L. Harvey & Sons had consulted with their outside attorneys when they first became subject to the prevailing wage laws, and as a result, believed they had been in compliance with the law."