A plastic products manufacturer and its staffing provider will pay more than $1.4 million in back wages and damages for failing to properly pay overtime, the US Department of Labor announced Tuesday. And two other staffing providers in Florida and Texas came under fire from regulatory agencies.

In one case, plastic products manufacturer United Plastics and ASI Staffing Group Corp., which supplied contract labor to United Plastics, will pay 566 employees at United Plastics manufacturing plants in Leominster, Mass, and Sardis, Miss., a total of $1,433,618 as part of a consent judgment and order obtained in federal court by the department.

An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found that United Plastics and ASI Staffing Group jointly employed employees at both plants and failed to pay overtime for an approximately three-year period. The contract employees worked as machine operators, maintenance workers, molding technicians, color mixers and quality control workers.

The investigation found ASI Group created additional company names to avoid paying proper overtime. 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. According to the investigation, United Plastics and its principals were aware that ASI Group workers at the Massachusetts and Mississippi United Plastics plants were not being paid proper overtime. United Plastics and ASI Staffing also failed to maintain legally required records of the number of hours worked by the employees and the rates at which they were paid.

“Employers who use staffing agencies as a cover for short-changing workers of their hard-earned wages are breaking the law, plain and simple,” said Mark Watson Jr., the Wage and Hour Division’s regional administrator. “Violations like this not only deprive workers of money they need to meet their living expenses, they also undercut law-abiding employers who pay their workers legally and play by the rules. The resolution of this case should send a strong message that employers can’t hide behind staffing agencies to avoid their responsibilities to their workers.”

The Wage and Hour Division determined that United Plastics bears responsibility as a joint employer under the FLSA, and is liable along with ASI Group for the back wages, liquidated damages and penalties.

The judgment, filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, orders the defendants to pay 566 employees a total of $1,433,618, which represents $716,809 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages, by December 2016. In addition, the defendants must pay $100,000 in civil money penalties and hire expert consultants to create pay and recordkeeping systems to help ensure compliance.

The wages and damages cover violations committed at the Massachusetts and Mississippi locations between November 2011 and October 2014. No violations were identified at the United Plastics Gilbert, Ariz., location.

In other cases announced this week:

• The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Ramnarain II LLC, dba HospitalityStaff, a staffing agency in Orlando. Fla., claiming it discriminated against an employee based on religion. The worker, Courtney Joseph, was assigned to a Walt Disney World resort as a prep cook and wore his hair in dreadlocks because he practices Rastafarianism. The company told Joseph to cut his hair to meet Disney appearance standards, but Joseph said he couldn’t because of his religious beliefs and was terminated, according to the EEOC. Joseph had worked at the resort from 2011 through 2013 and had tucked his dreadlocks under his cap during that time without question or incident. The lawsuit seeks reinstatement, back pay, and compensatory and punitive damages.
• The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Austin, Texas, cited Exterran Energy Solutions LP and its labor broker, South Texas Specialty Welders LLC, for safety violations. Exterran Energy Solutions faces fines totaling $111,000 while South Texas Specialty Welders LLC faces $9,800 in penalties. OSHA issued citations for two repeat, 23 serious and four other violations with a $111,000 penalty to Exterran Energy Solutions and four serious violations with a $9,800 penalty to South Texas Specialty Welders following an inspection on Jan. 13. Each company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to respond.