Payments In 91,500 Pennies And No OT Earns GA Business Labor Department Violation

GEORGIA — A suburban Atlanta auto repair shop owner who paid a former employee his final paycheck in more than $900 worth of pennies is being sued by the federal government.

The U.S. Labor Department filed a federal complaint against Miles Walker, the owner of A OK Walker Autoworks in Peachtree City claiming he violated the Fair Labor Standards Act for not paying his employees an hourly wage or overtime, according to court records.

Since at least April 2019, the Labor Department said Walker’s company paid nine employees a flat weekly fee rather than an hourly rate, regardless of how long they worked. So when employees worked over 40 hours in a week, they weren’t paid time-and-a-half, in violation of federal law.

The complaint also accuses Walker of “intentionally discriminating against their employees” for demanding to be paid fairly and for reporting him to the Labor Department.

Walker was not available for comment when Patch contacted his company Monday.

When former employee Andreas Flaten contacted Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in January 2021 to report not receiving his last paycheck and Labor Department staff reached out to the auto repair business owner, Walker refused to pay, telling the agency that a paycheck had been prepared “but it never made it to the mail,” according to federal documents.

Walker instead responded by saying, “How can you make this guy realize what a disgusting example of a human being he is ..? You know what? I’ve got plenty of pennies; I’ll use them.”

On March 12, 2021, the Labor Department said Walker left a pile of 91,500 pennies on Flaten’s driveway in nearby Fayetteville with a paycheck on top of the mound of coins.

Walker later posted to his website, “What started out as a gotcha to a subpar ex-employee, sure got a lot of press . . . know that no one would go to the trouble we did to make a point with out [sic] being motivated.”

While that statement is no longer on the A OK Walker site, the home page did allude to the incident.

“And, yes, we accept pennies as payment!” the website said. “They are cash! Ten percent processing fees do apply.”

Labor Secretary Martin Walsh is demanding three years of back pay for the nine employees who weren’t paid hourly and overtime wages, along with an additional amount “as liquidated damages.”