The lawsuit is the sixth wage-theft case filed against the Republican state senator's roofing company.

State Sen. Keith Perry is facing another wage-theft lawsuit from a disgruntled employee who says he is owed money for overtime he worked for Perry Roofing.

The class action lawsuit, filed in federal court last week, asks for a jury trial and could bring forward more past and current employees who have worked with Perry Roofing over the years.

The filing is the sixth such lawsuit against the Republican senator’s Gainesville-based company over the years, court records show.

Tallahassee attorney John Davis said his client, Dearmus Lovett, a Dixie County resident, is unsure of the exact amount he says he’s owed because the company doesn’t log hours and, like other roofing businesses, it charges a fluctuating “piece rate” for roof work to contractors. Under a piece rate, workers are paid for each "square" or shingle they place.

“Under the current law, everyone has the right to overtime unless they are exempt,” Davis said. “The employer has the burden of keeping records of how many hours each person works. I don't believe they do that.”

Davis wrote in the complaint that the roofing company showed a “reckless disregard” for provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, that it didn’t fairly compensate Lovett and that the company only uses an hourly rate to track sick and vacation time.

Perry, who is in Guatemala on an annual mission trip, said via text message Monday that he was unaware of the lawsuit, hadn't reviewed it and couldn't discuss it.

Dating back to 2006, court records show there have been five other wage-theft lawsuits from seven other employees filed against Perry’s roofing company. The employees all claimed to be paid for piece work and said they weren’t paid for overtime they are entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In most of the cases, the parties settled and the lawsuits were voluntarily dismissed.

However, roofing companies around the country have been hit with similar lawsuits.

Earlier this year, a U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation found that 11 other roofing companies in Florida paid employees at a piece rate during rebuilding efforts from Hurricane Irma, but did so without considering overtime beyond their 40-hour workweeks.

The investigation resulted in those companies paying nearly $240,000 to 259 employees for violations of overtime and record-keeping provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act. At least two other companies also paid a combined $22,425 in liquidated damages to 22 employees.

“It is not unusual,” said Bernard Mazaheri, a Kentucky-based labor law attorney who handles similar cases. “A lot of these businesses, especially in the construction industry, fail to fairly compensate their employees.”

Mazaheri said Florida is one of the worst states in the country when it comes to enforcing its wage laws. Even ensuring that employees are paid minimum wage has been challenging.

Under former Gov. Jeb Bush’s administration in 2004, Florida amended its constitution to set the minimum wage at $6.15 an hour through a ballot initiative. But buried in the text were changes that called for the state attorney general to prosecute violators who don’t pay the amount owed.

Florida has done little to enforce its wage laws since then, Mazaheri said. A 2016 article published in The Nation magazine reported that former Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi had not taken any actions against, or given any penalties to, violators through her first five years in office.

Aside from Perry Roofing, Davis has a similar lawsuit against another roofing company in Tallahassee.

He says most companies don’t offer insurance and believes that most of those employees don’t understand how their pay works.

“These are high-risk jobs,” he said. “These are not high-skilled jobs ... We believe it's pretty clear that they have to pay them overtime.”