Judge orders wage payment of $226K to gas station attendants
NEWARK – A federal judge has ordered the payment of $226,000 to six employees who were denied full wages at three Atlantic County gas stations.
The payment settles a U.S. Department of Labor complaint, which said the attendants were short-changed while working 11 to 13 hours a day, seven days per week.
The complaint asserted the workers were paid less than the minimum wage and did not receive required overtime.
Instead, the workers were paid a fixed salary between about $2,600 to $2,800 per month — “for a weekly salary as low as $600,” according to the complaint.
It also alleged the stations' operators — a company and a married couple from Edison — coerced the workers into providing false information to investigators.
The agency’s investigation focused on wage practices from June 2018 to October 202 at Delta Gas on the White Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township, Spirit Gas on South New York Road in Galloway, and Sun Petro Gas on Absecon Boulevard in Absecon.
The attendants frequently moved between the three stations during a typical work week, the Labor Department said.
The defendants were a company and a married couple from Edison — Point Pleasant Associates Inc.; the firm's owner, Bidiawatie Singh; and her husband and business manager Surjeet Singh.
The defendants, who had denied the claims in a court filing, agreed to the payments in a consent order from U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti in Newark.
The individual payments are to range from about $11,300 to $68,500, with four workers getting more than $45,000 each.
The payments include $12,000 in punitive damages due to intimidation of the workers, who believed they would lose their jobs if they cooperated with investigators, the consent order says.
It notes the defendants are to pay the back wages and financial damages to the Labor Department, which in turn will direct the money to the workers. The defendants also must pay the employer’s share of any applicable state and federal taxes on the back wages.
The federal agency took the station operators to court after an investigation of wage practices that began in October 2020.
Among other claims, the Labor Department said Point Pleasant Associates and the Singhs failed to keep “adequate and accurate” records for workers’ wages.
The judge also ordered the payment of civil penalties of about $3,700 to the Department of Labor.
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, the Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Labor Department investigation focused on gas-station wages
