News is breaking out of the Acadiana region of Louisiana. Three of the top Cajun meat houses have been fined by the U.S. Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division to the tune of $586,000.

Best Stop, Don’s Specialty Meats and Romero’s Grocery, all Scott, Louisiana businesses, were in violation of federal wage laws.

Don’s Specialty Meats led the charge with fines totaling $480,313. These monies will be disbursed to 133 workers.

Best Stop has already paid $56,386 to 36 workers. $10,819 will also be coming out of the supermarkets coffers in civil penalties.

Romero’s Grocery has paid $35,053 to to 33 workers. $3,927 was charged in civil penalties.

In short, the companies’ workers were shorted monies owed for time spent prior to and after their shifts when they were counting cash drawers. The workers were also forced to pay, out of their own pockets, for shortages on the cash tils. These worker penalties often led to the employees not making federally mandated minimum wages.

Overtime laws also were not obeyed as workers were paid regular wages for what should have been overtime hours.

This last violation is common practice in many restaurants. Instead of making your $18 time and a half for overtime you’ll typically be paid regular wage, sometimes in ‘under the table’ monies at 10 or so dollars an hour.

We’ll have further reports as warranted.

related: Don’s Specialty Meats burns to the ground