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Company prevented from hiring nonresident workers
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Posted on Sep 01 2004
The Department of Labor has barred a company from employing new nonresident workers in the Commonwealth for abandoning an alien worker.
K and B Co. Inc., which did business as An An, was also ordered to pay over $15,000 for back wages, damages, and fines.
The administrative order stemmed from a labor case filed by guest worker Hiroyuki Fukumoto, who was employed by the firm but was not compensated in full for his labor. Fukumoto said K and B Co. owed him $3,900 in unpaid regular and overtime wages.
The company also abandoned him and failed to pay him any wages for the balance of his contract, which ended on March 8, 2003. Thus, the company owes him four months wages at 40 hours a week at the rate of $3.05 per hour—or a total of $2,115.
No representatives from the company attended the hearing after proper notice, prompting the Labor Department to declare them in default.
Hearing officer Linn H. Asper awarded Fukumoto a total of $12,030. Broken down, this includes $3,900 for unpaid regular and overtime wages and $2,115 for unpaid wages for unprovided work, plus liquidated damages in equal amounts.
Asper also fined the company and its principal officers—Yoshinori Yasukochi, Yasuo Tanabe, and Kazutoki Nakata—the sum of $1,000 each for gross labor law violations.
“[They] are each permanently barred from employing nonresident workers in the Commonwealth,” Asper said.
The company’s bonding firm was also notified that the proceeds of the labor bond posted by K and B for Fukumoto will be applied to pay the worker a portion of his unpaid wages if the respondents fail to pay the wage award within 15 days.
Fukumoto was allowed to seek a transfer employer within 45 days.
