Newark Companies Cheated Workers Of Overtime, Must Pay $600K: Feds

NEWARK, NJ — Two Newark-based construction companies have been ordered to pay $600,000 in back wages and liquidated damages to 131 former employees, federal officials announced Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a federal court order involving two New Jersey companies. Spokespeople offered more details about the charges in a news release:

“The division found that masonry and concrete contractors Innovative Design and Development LLC, E&N Construction Inc. and Shawn Roney, Joaquim Ferreira and Elio Ferreira – the companies’ owners and operators – engaged in illegal pay practices. Specifically, the division found that in addition to a weekly check for 40 hours worked, the Newark-based employers paid employees with a second bonus check for overtime hours at their regular rate of pay rather than the overtime rate of one-and-one-half times the regular rate, as required by law. They also discovered the employers tried to hide the scheme by not keeping adequate and accurate records of daily and weekly hours worked. These actions violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).”

In addition to requiring the employers to pay back wages and liquidated damages, the court forbid them from future FLSA violations, retaliation against their employees, directly or indirectly, and seeking or accepting any of the back wages or liquidated damages paid to employees. Any company that the individual defendants own or operate will also be bound by these provisions.

The defendants must also distribute flyers and fact sheets on workers’ rights and overtime pay requirements governed by the FLSA, officials with the Department of Labor said.

Entered by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the consent judgment follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division and litigation by the department’s Office of the Solicitor.

“For years, Shawn Roney, Joaquim Ferreira, Elio Ferreira and their companies schemed to withhold overtime wages earned by their hard-working employees and tried to cover up their wage theft by falsifying records,” regional solicitor Jeffrey Rogoff alleged.

“Their actions were a gross violation of federal law,” Rogoff said.

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