There are two things most HR professionals strive to avoid:  (1) class actions and (2) jail.  An HR professional at an Iowa meat-packing plant managed to find her way into both.

Agriprocessors Inc. was hit with nearly $10 million in fines for violating various wage and hour laws.  Among the alleged violations:

• $9,643,600 for 96,436 unlawful clothing deductions affecting 2,001 employees (reducing their wages by $192,597)
• $339,700 for 3,397 unlawful “sales tax/miscellaneous” deductions affecting 1,073 employees (reducing their wages by $72,190)
• $4,900 for failing to pay 42 employees their final paychecks

In other words, by attempting to unlawfully save about $270,000, the company now must pay more than 37 times that amount.

In a separate matter, Laura Althouse, one of the company’s HR professionals, pled guilty to charges of conspiring to harbor undocumented aliens and aggravated identity theft in connection with a May 2007 raid that uncovered nearly 400 undocumented workers.  Althouse faces up to 12 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.  Similar charges are pending against another Agricprocessor HR professional.

The Lessons

They’re pretty obvious here.  Know and follow the law, especially the nuances of wage and hour and immigration law.  Failure to do so could be hazardous to your career and — possibly — your freedom.

To avoid this happening to you, check out the handy materials under the “Tools & Tips” Section of the Blawg.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Class Actions, Employment Law News, Wage and Hour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.