Five months after the state attorney general fined his former employer $2.4 million for violating labor laws, Doug Laufer has yet to be paid the back wages he was promised.
In February, Attorney General Andrea Campbell fined Concierge Services, a staffing company owned by a Plymouth man. A month later, the owner, Gregory Doyle, told employees he was shutting the company down. Laufer estimated the number of workers at 30.
Concierge Services had offices in Boston but listed its principal office at a Plantation Road property in Plymouth owned by Doyle.
Concierge provided services for high-end residential properties in the Boston area, including staffing for front desks, receiving packages, assisting residents, and screening and announcing visitors. It also provided door and pool attendants.
That all ended after the fines were levied.
The Attorney General’s office found that the company failed to pay minimum wage and overtime, failed to pay employees on time, made improper deductions from their paychecks, did not allow them to take sick leave, and did not pay them for unused sick time.
But instead of paying the fines, Doyle shuttered his business.
Laufer said he came back from vacation in Florida to find out that Concierge had closed.
“I am saddened to share the news that as of 7 a.m., March 22nd, Concierge Services, Inc. will cease doing business,” Doyle said in an email to employees obtained by the Independent. “Operations at all locations will end at this time.”
In the email, Doyle promised to pay employees for their last month’s work. He said he was working with the Attorney General and private counsel to manage the payroll.
But a month later, the Attorney General’s office told Laufer in an April 23 email that it was “not accurate” that to say that Doyle was working with the office.
In the email, Huong Phan, senior investigator in the Labor Fraud division of the AG’s office, wrote that it had ordered Concierge and Doyle to pay overdue wages for the last month the company operated. Phan said that if Doyle did not pay, the matter would be turned over to the Department of Revenue, which would impose a tax lien on Concierge and Doyle.
On May 22, Phan wrote Laufer that aside from paying a few employees, Doyle had not made payment towards a citation for most of the non-timely payment of wages that was issued to him and his company for the month prior to Doyle saying he was closing the company. As a result, Phan said, the Attorney General’s office had turned the matter over to the Department of Revenue to impose a tax lien.
In an email to the Independent, a spokesperson for Campbell said that lien, to cover back wages for employees’ last month of work, totals $171,889.
Doyle is appealing the $2.4 million fine, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Revenue did not respond to a request for comment. Doyle did not respond to an email requesting comment, and the Independent was unable to reach him by phone. No one answered the door when the Independent visited the Plantation Road house he listed as Concierge’s headquarters.
Laufer said Concierge would recruit young African and Haitian immigrants, underpay them, overwork them, and fire them if they asked questions about not being paid.
“Because they’re not citizens, they’re working with a visa or a green card, they would not protest,” Laufer said. “These kids are going to school. They live paycheck to paycheck.”
Many relied on the income from Concierge to pay college tuition, he said.
Some were owed $7,000 or $8,000, Laufer said.
Laufer said he used to work for Concierge primarily at Hub50 House, a building on Causeway Street, in Boston, managed by Bozzuto, a property management company. Bozzuto did not respond to a request for comment.
The same day Doyle closed Concierge, Laufer said another company, Atlas Residential, offered the same staff and services to the buildings that had used Concierge.
Atlas Residential was incorporated on March 26, four days after Concierge told employees it was closing. Its president, Cleopass Nakoma, had been the manager of Concierge. He did not respond to requests for comment.
“He would get mad if you would use your sick time,” said Kayla Suazo, a student who said she is a former Concierge employee. She said she worked weekends for two years as a concierge at The Eddy, on New Street, in East Boston. She is still working the at the luxury apartment complex for another company (not Atlas) that has taken over concierge services there.
Suazo said many of the employees she worked with were older. She said she and other employees were not paid for the last month before the company closed.
“Some people couldn’t pay their rent, so they got kicked out,” Suazo said.
“They had a common thing of hiring immigrants or people that rarely spoke English,” Suazo said of Concierge. “They can’t really defend themselves. They just came to this country.”
Correction: The headline in an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the owner of Concierge. The Plymouth Independent apologizes for the error.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.