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Department of Labor recovers $1.5M in back wages, damages from Dallas-based HVAC company

C&G HVAC LLC deprived 430 technicians of their “rights, protections and benefits,” a federal agency announced.

Update:
Updated at 8 p.m., July 26.: Revised with more information about the investigation.

Federal labor officials recouped more than $1.5 million in unpaid overtime wages and damages — an amount said to be “one of the largest recoveries of its kind” — from a Dallas-area company that misclassified workers as independent contractors, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Thursday.

An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found that C&G HVAC LLC deprived 430 technicians of their “rights, protections and benefits” by classifying the workers as independent contractors, according to a department news release. The Dallas company, the release said, owed technicians more than $756,000 in unpaid overtime wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages.

C&G HVAC LLC, formed in October 2017, was listed as inactive in January 2019, according to Texas Secretary of State records. In a statement to The Dallas Morning News, Department of Labor spokesperson Juan Rodriguez said the company was initially listed as Klassic HVAC Services. State records show that Klassic HVAC Services was formed in October 2013 and went inactive in January 2019.

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Gilberto Ray Contreras and his wife, Connie Mora, are listed as the owners of C&G HVAC LLC and Klassic HVAC Services, state records show. Attempts to reach Mora for comment Thursday were unsuccessful. Contreras, 42, died in March 2020, according to an online obituary, which said he owned C&G HVAC LLC and Klassic HVAC Services for eight years.

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“C&G HVAC denied these technicians their full wages, hurt taxpayers by not paying related payroll taxes and gained an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competition,” Betty Campbell, the Wage and Hour Division’s Southwest regional administrator in Dallas, said in the release. “These employees, who do essential work installing, maintaining and repairing cooling systems in North Texas, stand to collect thousands of dollars in back wages and damages owed to them for their hard work.”

The investigation ran from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2023. Rodriguez declined to explain how the probe began, saying the department does not disclose that information. “The Wage and Hour Division starts investigations for several reasons, including complaints, referrals, as part of an initiative, etc.,” he said.

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In fiscal year 2023, the division recovered over $24.5 million in back wages for about 20,000 misclassified workers in the U.S. In Texas, the division recovered $2.2 million for 5,100 misclassified workers, according to the release.

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