The owner of four Chicago-area We Wash Hand Wash and Car Detail Centers, including a business in Highland Park, was ordered by a federal judge to nearly $1 million in back wages, damages and penalties to employees and the U.S. Department of Labor. | Photo: Google Street View of Chicago business location

A federal judge has ordered the owner and operator of four Chicago-area We Wash Hand Wash and Car Detail Centers, including one in Highland Park, to pay $799,566 in back wages and damages to 110 employees and $110,990 in penalties to the U.S. Department of Labor as part of a consent judgment and order.

On September 19, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago ordered Mariusz Lekarczyk and his company to pay the back wages owed by May 1, 2025 and penalties by August 1, 2025.

Lekarczyk must also immediately display posters and provide information to employees about their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The court’s action came after a complaint was filed in district court after an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division discovered Lekarczyk did not pay workers overtime at time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours over 40 in a workweek.

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The complaint alleges Lekarczyk and his company paid workers by check for the first 40 hours they worked, then paid for overtime hours in cash at straight time without the overtime rates.

Lekarczyk also did not keep records of payments to workers as required by law.

“The recovery of these rightfully earned wages will have a tremendous impact on the employees who earned them and sends a clear message to all employers that we will not tolerate an employer’s failure to pay overtime,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Tom Gauza. “We appreciate the court’s support in the Department of Labor’s fight on behalf of workers and in holding employers legally accountable.”

The division found violations at the company’s Highland Park location in the 2700 block of Skokie Valley Road between October 2020, and October 2022, and additional discrepancies at their Rolling Meadows location between October 2020 and October 2022, and at their Chicago locations from June 2020 through June 2022.

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The Chicago locations were previously investigated in 2013 for similar overtime violations.

“The U.S. Department of Labor will take all necessary legal actions – including recovering back wages, seeking damages and assessing penalties – to hold employers who violate the law accountable,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Christine Z. Heri in Chicago.