A Phoenix, Arizona based construction company, Quality Builders Inc., has lost its ability to construct buildings for the federal government because it violated federal wage and hour laws. The construction company failed to pay 48 construction workers all of their wages for work completed on an apartment complex in Yuma County, Arizona.
According to the Department of Labor, the construction company did not record the number of hours that employees actually worked and paid the construction workers according to the number of jobs completed instead of by the hour. The company committed several other pay violations according to Wage and Hour Division investigators. The company failed to pay construction workers the wage and benefit amounts that were stipulated under the government building contract. Forty workers should have also received overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a week.
The company’s labor law violations resulted in $107,363 in wages owed to 48 carpenters. Because of the company’s wage and hour violations, the United States Department of Labor has declared that the company is no longer eligible to work on federal government contracts for a period of three years. The company is completely barred from working on any project related to the building in the future.
Quality Builders Inc. was contracted to build an 80 unit apartment building. The contract was a part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009. The regional administer for the Wage and Hour Division said the construction company not only violated the law but violated the spirit of the law as well by underpaying its workers.
Source: yumasun.com, “Company Barred From Federal Jobs,” Chris McDaniel, 12/16/10
