Alleged Violations to California Labor Law No Holiday for Affected Workers

Eureka, CA Whatever the profession, when an individual reports to the workplace he is assured under California labor law that basic tenets of comportment and behavior on the part of the employer are observed. The existence of such legislative guidelines, however, does not guarantee that an employer won’t knowingly take advantage of a situation or accidentally allow for important employee rights to fall through the cracks.

Regardless of the motivating factors, it often takes an official investigation and a California labor lawsuit to right those wrongs.

While it appears as if a lawsuit has not materialized so far in the case of alleged lapses of California labor code on a construction site for a new Holiday Inn Express, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office has nonetheless filed a lien against the property in question, located in Eureka, in an effort to recover almost a quarter of a million dollars in unpaid wages.

According to the Eureka Times Standard (8/13/13), the mechanic’s lien was filed earlier this month against the property located at 815 West Wabash Ave. and pertains to wages that were to have been paid, according to California and labor law, from January through May of this year.

According to the report, Carpenters Local 751 filed a complaint alleging various California labor employment law violations. That complaint led to an investigation launched March 27 under the auspices of the California Labor Commissioner’s Office together with the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration and California’s Labor Enforcement Task Force.

The investigation, it is reported, revealed that some paychecks issued to employees were returned NSF, with the unpaid wages also extending to meal and rest period violations. The investigation also found 13 workplace safety violations, including unsafe ladders, failure to provide fall protection and scaffolding, inadequate training to recognize fall hazards, and unguarded saws.

“It’s like any other illegal activity,” said Peter Melton, a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, in comments published in the Eureka Times Standard. “Supposedly, there’s a financial gain which causes people to cut corners and not obey the law, but the downside is if you get caught, you have to pay the penalty.”

According to the report, the total amount of unpaid wages in question added up to more than $247,600 owed to 31 workers who toiled on the Holiday Inn Express new build, a facility that was slated to open in the spring but now has been delayed until the fall. The property is reported to be owned by Shailesh Patel and Jayshree Patel Revocable Trust, with Jansen Construction and PacWest Contracting identified as the contractors. It is not known if the mechanic’s lien, brought according to allegations of wrongdoing under California employee labor law, has been appealed.