ATLANTA – An auto repair shop and its owner who paid a former worker with tens of thousands of pennies coated in an automotive fluid have been targeted by the U.S. Department of Labor for retaliation, overtime violations, and recordkeeping prohibitions.
U.S. Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh filed a complaint December 30 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against a Peachtree City auto repair shop and its owner. Investigators allege they violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The department’s Wage and Hour Division determined that Miles Walker, the owner of 811 Autoworks LLC – operating as A OK Walker Autoworks – retaliated against an employee who contacted the agency after he resigned and the employer failed to pay his final wages.
The ex-employee, Andreas Flaten, called the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division on January 26, 2021, to report that he did not receive his last paycheck. Flaten indicated he was told that his final paycheck had been prepared “but it never made it to the mail.”
The next day the DOL’s WHD called the company to inquire about Flaten’s last paycheck. “Defendants informed Wage and Hour that they would not pay Mr. Flaten his last paycheck,” the complaint alleges.
Instead, according to the DOL complaint, on March 12, 2021, Walker paid Flaten’s final wages of $915 by dumping approximately 91,500 oil-covered pennies at his home – blocking and staining his driveway and requiring nearly seven hours for him to remove. An envelope marked with an expletive and containing a pay stub, but no check, was placed with the coins.
It also is alleged that defamatory statements about Flaten were posted on the company’s website.
The federal agency also determined that Walker and 811 Autoworks violated the FLSA’s overtime provisions by paying other employees at the straight-time rate “regardless of the number of hours worked” each week; that practice had occurred since at least April 5, 2019, the DOL claims. The company failed to compensate its employees “at rates not less than” time-and-ahalf for all hours worked in excess of 40.
The DOL is seeking $36,971 in back wages and liquidated damages for Flaten and at least eight other employees.
Walker and 811 Autoworks also failed to keep adequate and accurate records of employees’ pay rates and work hours, the DOL has charged.
The department seeks to permanently enjoin Walker and 811 Autoworks from future FLSA retaliation, overtime and recordkeeping violations. A summons was issued to the company on January 3, court records show.
“By law, worker engagement with the U.S. Department of Labor is protected activity. Workers are entitled to receive information about their rights in the workplace and obtain the wages they earned without fear of harassment or intimidation,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Steven Salazar in Atlanta.