Landscaping Company to Pay $300,000 in Back Pay and Fines

The landscaping company has been ordered to pay $300,000 in back pay and fines for failing to hire U.S. workers and underpaying temporary foreign workers.

A landscaping company based in Wolcott, CT, has been ordered to pay $300,000 in back pay and fines for failing to hire U.S. workers and underpaying temporary foreign workers, the U.S. Department of Labor recently announced.

In a news release, the Labor Department said that Ultimate Services Professional Grounds Management Inc. will pay $280,000 in back wages to 80 workers and nine job applicants, and $20,000 in civil penalties.  

Investigators from the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division's New Haven Area Office discovered that the landscape company violated provisions of the H-2B temporary visa program during the 2011 and 2012 hiring seasons. They determined the company did not employ most of the U.S. workers listed as "hired" on its recruitment records, and failed to pay its H-2B employees the required prevailing wage rate.

The company has also signed consent findings approved by the department's Office of Administrative Law Judges and agreed to actively engage in enhanced recruitment of U.S. workers, the department said.

Read the original store here.

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