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Dot Ave. store to pay up for screwing workers out of pay
By adamg on Mon, 12/28/2015 - 12:42pm
The owner of Truong-Thinh Market, 1305 Dorchester Ave., is admitting he paid a number of workers less than minimum wage and made them work overtime for a lot less than they should have, the state Attorney General's office reports.
Market owner Joseph Pham has agreed to pay $84,000 in restitution to seven workers for two years' worth of inadequate wages, as well as $21,000 in fines, the attorney general's office says, adding it began an investigation this past July after workers complained.
From September 2013 to August 2015, a total of seven employees were not paid minimum wage or the proper overtime rate. Employees were working more than 40 hours per week and were paid a salary in cash that did not meet the statutory requirements for minimum wage or overtime. The state’s Overtime Law requires employers to pay qualifying employees time and one half their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a work week. The store and Pham also failed to keep accurate payroll records.
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Comments
And they all learned a valuable lesson
...specifically, that if you flagrantly flaunt the state's minimum wage laws, you run almost no chance of the AG pursuing the case (or am I to believe that this is the only business in the state that pays its workers in cash and relies on their questionable citizenship-status/English-language-proficiency being enough of a cudgel to keep them from reporting it), and if they DO pursue it, you will only be fined 1/4 of the amount you are found guilty of withholding.
On net, if I'm a shady small business owner deciding whether to pay my workers minimum wage or not, this announcement is a strong push in the direction of "nope, pay 'em $2.75 an hour and take my chances."