NEW YORK – A Poughkeepsie manufacturer
and distributor of baby apparel and accessories denied 49 workers overtime
pay and then attempted to thwart federal investigators by hiding workers
and threatening them if they spoke to agents of the US Department of Labor.
A yearlong probe found that BabyVision, Inc., and the company’s owners, Shreenivas Shah and Malti Shah, paid employees, including some not on the company payroll, straight time in cash and denied them the required overtime rate of 1 ½ times their regular hourly wage when they worked more than 40 hours per week.
The owners also improperly classified some workers as exempt from overtime and they failed to maintain proper payroll records, the government alleged.
The Shahs’ actions violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and as a result, the agency found that the workers are due $121,349 in overtime back wages and liquidated damages.
A consent judgment was secured by the federal department that ordered the Shahs to pay the back wages and damages, take extensive corrective action to prevent future violations and pay $13,744 in civil penalties, given the willful nature of their violations.
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