Date of action: April 3, 2023
Type of action: Complaint
Names of defendants: EM Policia Privada Inc.; its successor Vigilancia Virtual y Policia Privada LLC; Israel Martínez Gutiérrez, individually Carmen Hernandez Rosa, individually; and Daniel Vargas, individually.
Background: The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a Fair Labor Standards Act complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico seeking back wages and liquidated damages from two Puerto Rico security companies and their principals, after an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division. The department is also assessing civil money penalties.
Investigators found EM Policia and Vigilancia unlawfully classified more than 300 security guards as independent contractors instead of employees, even though the employers exercised substantial control over key aspects of the guards’ work, including setting workers’ schedules and duty locations and prohibiting them from making personal phone calls while on duty.
EM Policia and Vigilancia also paid guards hourly, frequently no higher than the Puerto Rico minimum wage. In many instances, the employers paid their workers the same rate for all hours worked, including hours worked over 40 in a week, violating the overtime provision of the FLSA.
The complaint alleges the employers also engaged in multiple schemes to cover up their overtime violations, including failing to provide investigators with payroll and time records for specific employees and time periods. When the Wage and Hour Division began investigating, EM Policia shut down and transferred its business to Vigilancia, seemingly to avoid FLSA liability.
The division’s Caribbean District Office conducted the investigation. Senior Trial Attorney Jacob Heyman-Kantor of the New York Regional Office of the Solicitor is litigating the case for the department.