A U.S. Department of Labor investigation has recovered $28,455 in unpaid overtime wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages from a Hawi nursery and landscaping company after finding the business failed to pay overtime wages to 37 employees over three years.
The department’s Wage and Hour Division determined that Aikane Nursery &Landscaping — owned by brothers Brandon and Bradley Belmarez — paid its employees straight time for overtime hours worked in some weeks between March 2019 and March 2022.
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employees be paid time-and-one-half of their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek.
Division investigators also found the company failed to keep and maintain accurate payroll and time records of its employees’ hours of work and violated the child labor requirements of FLSA by allowing minors — those under the age of 16 — to work more hours per week than federal law allows.
“It was a huge learning experience,” Brandon Belmarez said Tuesday. “The investigator said normally they go after businesses that pay their employees poorly and treat their employees badly, but she talked to all of our employees and none of them had anything bad to say about working with our company.”
He said Aikane Nursery &Landscaping provides “really good pay and a good environment to work.”
“When we passed out the checks for unpaid overtime, we actually had employees who didn’t want to accept them,” he said, noting he made sure they all got their compensation.
The brothers took over the nursery in 2010 with two employees and have grown the business to over 50, adding the landscaping aspect in 2016.
“I should have taken the time to really delve into the laws but I’ll be an advocate for new businesses here now. Once you get into having employees, you have to know all the laws,” said Belmarez.
“We thought we were agricultural,” he explained. “Hawaii agricultural employees are exempt from overtime pay so I never thought about it twice because I thought we were exempt. We told employees when they were hired that they wouldn’t get paid overtime because they wouldn’t work over 40 hours per week. I would have employees who wanted to work extra hours, so I would allow them to make some extra money.”
He was told by the DOL investigator that companies making over $500,000 are subject to federal law, which supersedes state law.
“I told her ‘do what you have to do.’ I complied to the fullest. I’m an open book. I’m here to run a legit business and be aboveboard,” he added.
He said the company was doing their its payroll, and that was their downfall.
“We were in way over our head,” he said.
He has since switched to a payroll service.
In addition to paying a total of $56,910, in back wages and damages, Aikane paid a civil monetary penalty of $10,000 for a child labor violation and reckless disregard of the act’s overtime requirements.
As far as the child labor violation, Belmarez said the company had hired a minor, who had reportedly dropped out of school, at the request of the minor’s parent.
“The mom wanted him to work and he was learning all kinds of things from us, but because of his age, he had to adhere to school hour limitations, even though he was no longer in school,” he said. “I thought we were helping him out, learning a trade and keep the kid off the streets.”
He said the experience dealing with the investigator was very cordial, and the investigator understood his plight, but had to follow the law and impose the fines.
“My brother and I are just wanting to help the community,” he said. “It was a very hard lesson to learn, but we had to face the music and take one on the chin.”
