DES MOINES, IA – In September 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor obtained a consent judgment to recover $1.7 million for nearly 2,900 workers employed by 145 different subcontractors in 2015 to euthanize birds and dispose of carcasses during the avian flu outbreak and is trying to locate workers owed back wages.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture contracted Clean Harbors Environmental Services Inc. of Norwell, Massachusetts, to remove potentially infected poultry waste – between April and September of 2015 – from sites primarily in Iowa. The department’s Wage and Hour Division later determined that subcontractors hired by Clean Harbors paid workers less than the prevailing wage required by their federal contract.
“Employers of more than 2,900 people who worked long hours in response to an environmental disaster shortchanged their hard-earned wages,” explained Regional Wage and Hour Division Administrator Michael Lazzeri. “Prime contractors, such as Clean Harbors, are responsible for their compliance with federal contract labor protections as well as the compliance of the subcontractors they employ.”
“The Wage and Hour Division is determined to make sure the employers pay federal contract workers their full prevailing wages, and we are eager to find the people owed these back wages,” Lazzeri added.
Many of the workers were employed by subcontractors such as Center for Toxicology & Environmental Health and Cotton Logistics, Cotton Logistics, SWS Environmental Services,...
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