Business owner paid ex-worker with 91,000 pennies. That's retaliation, feds claim in lawsuit.

Business owner paid ex-worker with 91,000 pennies. That’s retaliation, feds claim in lawsuit.

After a former worker of A OK Walker Autoworks filed a grievance with state labor regulators in 2021 accusing the owner of failing to problem his remaining paycheck of $915, he received an unwelcome shock: a mountain of 91,000 pennies, coated in oil, dumped in his driveway. 

However the employee, Andreas Flaten, could also be having the final snort. The U.S. Division of Labor has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Peachtree, Georgia-based auto restore store and owner Miles Walker after deciding that the stunt amounted to retaliation. 

In line with the federal government’s complaint, Walker determined to pay Flaten in pennies inside hours of studying that he had contacted regulators over his lacking paycheck.

“How can you make this guy realize what a disgusting example of a human being he is…,” Walker acknowledged, the Labor Division alleged in the swimsuit. “[Y]ou know what? I’ve got plenty of pennies; I’l use them.”

A employee partaking with the Labor Division is protected beneath federal regulation, based on the company. “Workers are entitled to receive information about their rights in the workplace and obtain the wages they earned without fear of harassment or intimidation,” an official with the company’s wage and hour division in Atlanta mentioned in a statement Wednesday. 

The Labor Division additionally decided that Walker had illegally disadvantaged different staff on the store of additional time pay, in addition to failing to maintain correct pay and work information. It’s asking a U.S. district courtroom in Georgia to bar the defendants from any future breaches of the Honest Labor Requirements Act, together with retaliation and additional time violations.

A statement posted on A OK Walker Autoworks’ web site, labeled “pennies,” mentioned the corporate requested the Labor Division if it was allowed to pay Flaten “in cash of any denomination” and that the company didn’t supply particular steering. The enterprise additionally denied placing oil on the cash. 

“There were exactly 100,003 pennies, 750 dimes, 2 quarters, a nickel, and his pay stub in the pile,” the publish states. “That is a lot more than what we were legally obligated to give him. Why so much more? We figured that he would have had enough intelligence to just have the pennies counted and exchanged.”

An worker of the auto store declined to remark and mentioned she didn’t know tips on how to contact Walker.

After the Labor Division filed its grievance, Flaten advised Business Insider he would encourage different staff who really feel they’re wrongly denied their wages to file a grievance.

“They definitely should not be scared to reach out,” he advised the information outlet. “Speak up. Don’t be quiet about it. Because if you’re quiet about it, it’s just going to continue to happen to you and everybody else.”

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