California Warehouse, Logistics Companies Fined Nearly $840K After Worker Pay Probe

Three recent U.S. Department of Labor investigations in San Diego, California recovered nearly $840,000 for 32 employees, some of whom one employer reportedly paid less than $3 per hour.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division determined that Ruffo de Alba Forwarders LP, SAI Logistics Exports Inc. and Moving Technologies of America Inc. shortchanged workers and violated numerous provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Division investigators reported violations by each employer as follows:

• Ruffo de Alba Forwarders, a customs broker providing logistic and transportation services, failed to pay at least an hourly minimum wage of $7.25 to workers and denied required overtime pay for hours over 40 in a week to employees who traveled from Mexico to the U.S. In some cases, the employer paid workers as little as $3.27 per hour in Mexican pesos. The department obtained a consent judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California that ordered Ruffo de Alba Forwarders and owner Andres Ruffo to pay 14 workers $222,899 in wages owed and an equal amount in damages totaling $445,798, as well as $8,645 in penalties for their misconduct to the department. The court also ordered the employers to hire an independent third-party to conduct FLSA training annually.
• SAI Logistics Experts, a broker assisting the cross-border goods transport, denied Mexican workers their required overtime wages and failed to meet federal minimum wage requirements. The employer paid Mexican workers as little as $3.86 per hour in Mexican pesos. A consent judgment entered by the same court ordered SAI and its agents to pay $318,249 in minimum wage, overtime and liquidated damages owed to 13 workers and pay the department $8,645 in penalties. The court also required the company to hire an independent third-party to provide FLSA training at least once a year.
• Moving Technologies of America, a transportation and distribution subsidiary of Vadeto Group LLC in San Diego, failed to pay five employees federal minimum wages, instead paying them in Mexican pesos and some workers as little as $2.77 per hour. The division recovered $75,132 — representing $37,566 in back wages and an equal amount in damages — for five employees and assessed $3,324 in penalties for its willful and repeated disregard of the law. In 2020, the division recovered $12,225 for four workers after finding MTA denied them required overtime pay.

The division’s San Diego District Office investigated the cases, and the Office of the Solicitor in San Francisco negotiated the consent judgments on behalf of the department.

Topics California Trucking