Bay City News
The owner of four La Estrella Tacos & Seafood restaurants in Manteca agreed Thursday to pay $824,405 in back wages and damages to 102 workers after not paying overtime hours, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
An investigation from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found Juan Francisco Fonseca in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires overtime pay rates after 40 hours, and determined that he also failed to maintain accurate and complete payroll records.
Francisco Fonseca is the owner of La Estrella Tacos & Seafood that operates under different cooperation’s at the four locations.
Investigators said the business owner allegedly attempted to avoid paying employees overtime by creating different corporations and didn’t combine the hours worked at multiple locations for overtime pay calculations.
The Department of Labor alleged that some employees who had over 26 overtime hours per week were still paid their regular pay rates.
“Restaurants with workers at more than one location cannot simply move employees between establishments in the same workweek to avoid overtime pay,” Wage and Hour Division district director Cesar Avila said in a statement. “This employer’s costly disregard for their workers’ rights has also resulted in the assessment of civil money penalties.”