BOSTON -- A settlement between Attorney General Tom Reilly's Office and a New England trash hauling company will result in more than $800,000 in unpaid wages for hundreds of workers from Massachusetts and other New England states, AG Reilly announced today. The workers were paid below the prevailing wage while working for the company over a two-year period.

AG Reilly's Office has mailed letters informing approximately 620 employees that Waste Management of Massachusetts, Inc., based in Hampton, NH, agreed to pay the back wages plus interest by next week.

"This is a fair settlement for hard-working employees who earned this pay," said AG Reilly. "The Prevailing Wage law ensures that there is a level playing field for contractors who work on taxpayer-funded public works contracts. A case like this shows that enforcing prevailing wage law can make a real difference."

According to the AG's Office, Waste Management underpaid employees from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire, who provided publicly funded trash hauling services between Nov. 17, 1998 and June 25, 2000. The work was done in more than 50 cities and towns throughout Massachusetts. State law requires any business with public trash hauling contracts to pay its workers at least the prevailing wage, a minimum wage which is set by the Commonwealth's Division of Occupational Safety.

The case was brought to the attention of the Attorney General's Office by several Waste Management workers who complained that they were owed wages.

Employees will be receiving checks from $10 to as much as $8,800, depending on where the employee worked and for how long.

A second phase of audits is being conducted to determine whether additional wages are owed to employees for the last six months of this year.

Assistant Attorney General Bruce Trager of AG Reilly's Fair Labor and Business Practices Division prosecuted the case, with assistance from Inspector Robert Lamarre, also of the Fair Labor Division.

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