SAN DIEGO – In its continuing effort to combat labor abuses of foreign workers in Southern California’s logistics and warehousing industries, the U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $1.1 million from two companies operating in the San Diego area – Freig Carrillo Forwarding Inc. and ACV Logistics Inc. – for 50 Mexican nationals, some paid as little as $2.43 an hour.
Federal investigators found the employers used affiliates to pay the affected workers in Mexican Pesos by direct deposit each week.
Since 2021, the department has recovered more than $2.2 million from other San Diego employers after the department’s Wage and Hour Division found they used similar labor practices to exploit workers.
The recent recovery comes after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California entered a consent judgment and order on March 9, 2023, in which Freig Carrillo Forwarding Inc. and owner, Javier Martin Freig Carrillo must pay $1 million in back wages and damages to 35 workers, $400,000 of which must be paid within 15 days with monthly payments of $16,928 for three years. The employer must also pay $26,215 in civil money penalties for its egregious violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
“The department’s ongoing work in this industry along the Southern border puts other U.S. employers on notice that we will not tolerate these kinds of exploitive labor practices,” said Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda. “An employee’s citizenship has no bearing on whether the Fair...
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