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Manufacturer United Plastics, staffing agency ASI Group to pay $1.4M in back wages, damages
Do you have five-gallon buckets? Flip them over. You might find that they come from Leominster, Massachusetts.
WHD News Release: Release Number: 16-1209-BOS
07/12/2016
Media Contact Name:
Ted Fitzgerald
Email: fitzgerald.edmund@dol.gov
Phone Number: (617) 565-2075
Media Contact Name:
James C. Lally
Email: lally.james.c@dol.gov
Phone Number: 617-565-2074
News Release
Manufacturer United Plastics, staffing agency ASI Group to pay $1.4M in back wages, damages to 566 employees in Massachusetts, Mississippi
ASI Group used shell companies to avoid paying overtime
BOSTON – Employees at United Plastics manufacturing plants in Leominster, Massachusetts, and Sardis, Mississippi, will receive a total of $1,433,618 in back wages and liquidated damages as part of a consent judgment and order obtained in federal court by the U.S. Department of Labor.
An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found that the Leominster-based plastic products manufacturer and ASI Staffing Group Corp., which supplied contract labor to United Plastics jointly employed and systematically underpaid employees at both plants over approximately a three year period by denying them the overtime pay they were entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The investigation found that to avoid paying proper overtime, ASI Group developed a scheme under which they created additional company names. When employees worked more than 40 hours in a week, the overtime hours were recorded under a separate company name, and some or all of their overtime hours were paid at straight time rates. These contract employees worked as machine operators, maintenance workers, molding technicians, color mixers and quality control workers, often in excess of 48 hours per week.
07/12/2016
Media Contact Name:
Ted Fitzgerald
Email: fitzgerald.edmund@dol.gov
Phone Number: (617) 565-2075
Media Contact Name:
James C. Lally
Email: lally.james.c@dol.gov
Phone Number: 617-565-2074
News Release
Manufacturer United Plastics, staffing agency ASI Group to pay $1.4M in back wages, damages to 566 employees in Massachusetts, Mississippi
ASI Group used shell companies to avoid paying overtime
BOSTON – Employees at United Plastics manufacturing plants in Leominster, Massachusetts, and Sardis, Mississippi, will receive a total of $1,433,618 in back wages and liquidated damages as part of a consent judgment and order obtained in federal court by the U.S. Department of Labor.
An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found that the Leominster-based plastic products manufacturer and ASI Staffing Group Corp., which supplied contract labor to United Plastics jointly employed and systematically underpaid employees at both plants over approximately a three year period by denying them the overtime pay they were entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The investigation found that to avoid paying proper overtime, ASI Group developed a scheme under which they created additional company names. When employees worked more than 40 hours in a week, the overtime hours were recorded under a separate company name, and some or all of their overtime hours were paid at straight time rates. These contract employees worked as machine operators, maintenance workers, molding technicians, color mixers and quality control workers, often in excess of 48 hours per week.
