NBG Logistics Alliance and its Mexican affiliate, Agencia Aduanal Guillermo Nogueira y Asociados, provide logistics support, like warehouse management, distribution services, and customs compliance and clearance assistance, at its locations in San Diego and Calexico.
On July 31, the U.S. Labor Department slapped the company with a preliminary injunction and court order forbidding NBG from threatening or retaliating against its workers and interfering with an ongoing federal investigation.
When Wage and Hour Division investigators showed up at NBG on April 30, 2024, the company stashed workers for hours at a local fast-food restaurant until investigators left. The company then sent employees to work across the border at the company’s Mexicali location and confiscated their work cell phones before firing them and deleting any proof of their employment.
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The injunction follows an investigation into alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. NBG Logistics allegedly paid workers at California warehouses in pesos through its Mexican affiliate. The workers would cross the border daily to work at NBG's California warehouses.
OSHA Regional Solicitor Marc Pilotin called the cover-up "despicable" and the injunction is designed to prevent NBG from retaliating against employees who they think may have spoken to a labor investigator, interfering or preventing any employee from cooperating in an investigation, contacting or threatening to contact an employee’s family or friends, and destroying evidence.
NBG must also restore all data, messages and programs deleted from computers and cell phones that contain evidence related to the investigation.
According to the lawsuit, NBG doesn't dispute many of the allegations, but does dispute that it is related to the Nogueira Company, NBG’s alleged Mexican counterpart. NBG must also provide the Labor Department a list of all employees since April 30, 2021, as well as their contact information.
The injunction is part of an ongoing effort to root out abusive labor practices in the customs warehouse industry. In three previous investigations, the Department of Labor recovered some $840,000 for 32 employees, some of whom one employer paid less than $3 per hour.
IEN reached out to NBG, but the company did not respond to our request for comment.
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