Windsor company accused of underpaying U.S. citizen workers, taking kickbacks from foreign employees – The Denver Post

A Windsor concrete construction company has paid nearly $60,000 to settle claims that it underpaid U.S. citizen masons and concrete finishers and accepted kickbacks from foreign workers employed under the H-2B visa program.

As a result of a U.S. Department of Labor investigation, Windsor-based Coloscapes Concrete paid $21,750 in back wages and $31,496 in civil penalties to settle violations of the H-2B nonimmigrant visa program, plus $6,454 to resolve overtime and recordkeeping violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division found that Coloscapes Concrete violated provisions of the visa program by collecting a $1,000 recruitment fee from H-2B workers and by accepting kickbacks from reimbursement checks intended to compensate employees for visa fees and transportation costs from their home countries, according to a press release.

Coloscapes Concrete also violated provisions of the H-2B program when it paid U.S. workers less than it paid similarly employed guest workers, the labor department said in a news release Friday, and when it laid off U.S. workers shortly before hiring guest workers to perform the same work.