Overtime Lawyer Blog

A recent report indicates that thousands – nearly 8000 – of employees are entitled to back wages as the result of the failure of a Texas employer to pay its workers the total amount of wages due. The company Kinder Morgan, Inc., and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, Inc. one of the nation’s largest pipeline transportation and energy companies in North America, has agreed to pay $830,422 in back wages to past and current employees in order to resolve a pending lawsuit.

A lawsuit was filed against Kinder Morgan after an investigation revealed systemic violations of federal law regarding wage and hour payment practices. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), all employees who are not exempt from the FLSA are entitled to overtime pay and must be paid at a rate of one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in any workweek. This simple sounding rule is the grounds for many lawsuits across the country. In some instances, employers erroneously and sometimes intentionally, simply fail to make the correct calculation and do not pay workers what they deserve.

Here, an investigation found violations in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota and Texas. Included in the errors - bonuses paid to employees were not included in the regular rate of pay. As a result, when overtime compensation was calculated, employees received the wrong amount. Another common error made – employees were not paid for pre-shift meetings (which count as hours worked) and employee’s hours were rounded to benefit the company.

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Generally, federal law provides that non-exempt employees are entitled to minimum wage and overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a work week. However, in 1974 when Congress added domestic employees to those covered by the FLSA, it specifically exempted people who provide “companionship services.” The Department of Labor now seeks to review whether this should be changed.

Home health care workers comprise about 1.8 million workers – trained professionals often paid by Medicaid who don’t receive overtime. Currently, bills have been introduced in both the Senate and House to extend the FLSA to cover home health care workers and the DOL has announced that it will reexamine the companionship exemption. This process will begin with a comment period where everyone can present an opinion – pro or con. The DOL will then make a decision whether to change the exemption or not.

Interested parties can either make comments in person or call in.

Hopefully those interested in ensuring home-health care workers obtain the compensation they are entitled to will find a way to comment and influence the DOL. A recent article in the New York Times noted that “home care workers struggle too. Theirs is among the fastest-growing lowest-paid jobs in America…These need to be middle-class job.”

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In a California case that may have widespread impact, the California Supreme Court has just determined that out-of-state workers must be paid for overtime work performed in California. In Sullivan et al v. Oracle Corp., the Court determined that Oracle Corp. could be found liable for unpaid wages if it did not pay its out-of-state computer trainers for work performed in California pursuant to its wage and hour laws.

Similar to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the California labor code requires workers to be paid overtime for work over eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. The Court reviewed whether Arizona and Colorado workers who visited the state to provide training must also receive overtime compensation.

The California Supreme Court unanimously determined they must be paid overtime, with Justice Kathryn Werdegar writing, "To permit nonresidents to work in California without the protection of our overtime law would completely sacrifice, as to those employees, the state's important public policy goals of protecting health and safety and preventing the evils associated with overwork."

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Thousand of Farmers Insurance Company employees have just learned that they will be paid more than $1.5 million in overtime-back wages. The workers were never compensated for work they performed pre-shift – activities such as turning on work stations, logging into the company phone system and inserting software applications necessary to begin their call center duties.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) all employees who are not exempt must be paid at a rate of one and one-half times your regular rate of pay. This generally includes any pre- and post- shift work you must perform on the job. Here, a U.S. Department of Labor investigation determined that Farmer’s Insurance had significant and systemic violations on the federal FLSA’s overtime and record-keeping provisions. These violations occurred across the country at customer-service call centers in Florida, Texas, Oregon, Michigan, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The investigation revealed that employees spent an average of 30 minutes on unrecorded and uncompensated duties – primarily pre-shift work getting ready to begin their call center duties. As the result of the investigation, the employees are now entitled to time and a half of their regular rate of pay for time worked in excess of 40 hours while performing those duties.

Continue reading " Farmers Insurance Agrees to Pay More Than $1.5 Million In Back Wages " »