The exterior of Marine Base Camp Blaz as seen in Dededo on Oct. 4, 2023. Jonah Benavente/The Guam Daily Post
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A federal subcontractor on Guam has been debarred from seeking federally funded contracts after the Wage and Hour Division at the U.S. Department of Labor determined that the contractor “shortchanged” more than two dozen construction workers at Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz and gave investigators falsified records, a release from USDOL stated.
The investigation led to the recovery of $106,446 in unpaid wages, including $10,549 in damages, for 29 workers building housing units at the base.
USDOL’s Wage and Hour Division found that Danes Construction Corp. violated federal regulations governing the employment of workers on projects supported by federal funds, the release from the federal labor department stated.
Specifically, the construction company was found to have done the following:
Paid ironworkers less than their required prevailing minimum wage rate of $14.84 per hour.
Failed to pay temporary, non-immigrant workers from the Philippines for all hours worked.
Did not record hours worked or wages paid correctly.
Paid workers straight-time rates for overtime hours over 40 in a workweek.
Willfully submitted false payroll records, knowing they masked their recordkeeping violations and failure to pay required wages.
The Wage and Hour Division determined that Danes Construction violated the Davis-Bacon and related acts, the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as regulations of the H-2B temporary worker program, the USDOL release stated.
“Our investigation found Danes Construction Corp. deliberately shortchanged people employed to fulfill federally funded contracts, including temporary H-2B workers who traveled from their homes in the Philippines,” Wage and Hour Division District Director Terence Trotter stated in the release.
“Employers who wrongly believe they can profit on the backs of hard-working people will likely find themselves liable for back wages, damages and penalties and possibly debarred from bidding on federally supported projects,” Totter added.
This wasn’t the first time that the construction company was caught committing violations.
According to USDOL, a 2015 investigation determined that Danes Construction violated federal regulations by paying employees straight-time rates for overtime hours worked. The Wage and Hour Division recovered $8,193 in back wages for 17 workers in that case.
“The employer’s repeated and willful violations of federal regulations led the department to assess the contractor with $6,750 in civil money penalties and exclude them from submitting bids for federally funded projects for three years,” the USDOL release stated.
