| A Leominster construction company has been cited $837,341 in restitution and penalties for violating state wage and hour laws and making unlawful deductions from employees’ paychecks.
The attorney general’s office issued two civil citations to Force Corp. and its managers Juliano Fernandes, a repeat wage act violator; Anderson Dos Santos; and Claudio Cicero Da Silva for failure to make timely payment of wages and failure to furnish payroll records to the attorney general’s office
“Force Corp. and its managers cheated their construction workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement. “To build this case, our team documented the use of dozens of illegal tricks used by employers to steal from workers. This is a textbook example of wage theft in the construction industry and we will keep working until every worker is made whole.”
The attorney general’s office began its investigation after the New England Regional Council of Carpenters referred complaints from Force workers to the AG’s Fair Labor Division alleging wage violations at two projects, one in Littleton and the CATS Academy Project in Braintree.
During the investigation, the AG’s office issued multiple payroll demands to Force that uncovered an extensive practice whereby managers regularly took illegal deductions from employees’ weekly wages for tools, safety equipment, discipline, advances and other purposes.
The investigation revealed that Force unlawfully required employees to purchase their construction tools through a company owned by Fernandes. The company’s tool purchase agreements were poorly drafted, misleading and available only in English, which Fernandes knew many of the employees would be unable to understand. The investigation also revealed that even for potentially lawful deductions, Force did not maintain the required records.
The office has previously cited Fernandes as owner of construction companies Teles Construction Inc. and Twin Pines Construction Inc. for wage and hour violations. Past violations ranged from failure to pay overtime and prevailing wage to employee misclassification and failure to maintain true and accurate records.
