The owner of six sandwich shop franchises located in different Central Massachusetts communities will be required to pay back wages to a dozen employees after the U.S. Department of Labor filed a complaint against the stores for failing to pay the required overtime and failing to keep track of employee hours.
The decision, handed down as a consent judgment in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts on Jan. 13, ordered the owner of the six Subway sandwich shops pay back wages of $31,802 to a dozen workers. The order also calls for the payment of an equal amount to the employees in “liquidated wages,” for a total of $63,000.
The owner, identified in court papers as Ritesh Patel, was also fined a civilian penalty of $4,626 for what the court found was a “willful” violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act . Two of the sub shops are located in Framingham, and one each in Sudbury, Oxford, Sturbridge and Leicester. The store in Sudbury closed in 2022…