Chesco Company Owes Employees $1.9M In Wages, Damages: Feds

CHESTER COUNTY, PA — Thousands of employees at Chester County-based Progressive Business Publications are owed money after the company failed to pay employees for bathroom and water breaks, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Federal officials have recovered $1,916,000 in back wages and liquidated damages from the Malvern marketing company, also known as American Future Systems and operating as Catalyst Media.

Telemarketing workers at the company had their pay docked for nearly every single second they didn't spend making sales calls, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Owner Ed Satell and the company directly violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal judge ruled.

When workers had their pay docked, it often brought their wages below the federal minimum wage, according to the Department of Labor.

The DOL is now seeking any employees who believe they may be owed some of those back wages. The Department's Wage and Hour Division said that about 8,382 Progressive Business Publications employees who worked there from August 9, 2009, through January 3, 2016, at 18 call centers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio, may be eligible for payments.

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WHD provides its Workers Owed Wages search tool to assist workers owed back wages.

If your contact information has changed since the period of the investigation, call (267) 514-6072 or email WHDVM.PhiladelphiaPaDOPGR@dol.gov to provide an update.

With reporting from Patch correspondent Max Bennett