Some former employees and a federal agency had to make federal cases out of being shorted on pay to secure proper employee payment from a Winter Haven security company.
A consent judgment in Tampa federal court between Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh and Freeman Security Services ordered the company to pay $117880 to 76 workers — $1,551 per employee — after Freeman misclassified the workers as independent contractors from August 2018 through March 2022.
By calling the employees independent contractors, Freeman could avoid paying overtime rates, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act, when the employees worked more than 40 hours per week.
The judgment ordered Freeman to pay the employees $58,940 in back pay and $58,940 in liquidated damages.
“Freeman Security Services also failed to pay several former security guards final pay, and minimum wage rates as the law requires,” the U.S. Department of Labor said in announcing the consent judgment in December.
In the same court in 2021, Freeman, run by CEO Darren Freeman, reached a settlement with former employees Juan Rivera and Jorge Vela, who claimed Freeman didn’t pony up overtime pay when they earned it. While the settlement called what Freeman paid Rivera and Vela “alleged overtime back pay” and “alleged liquidated damages,” Freeman also paid $5,000 of each man’s attorney’s fees.
The settlement gave Rivera $2,750 in overtime back pay and $2,750 in liquidated damages while Vela received $2,250 in overtime back pay and...
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