HOUSTON – Sanitation workers loading and driving waste trucks in rural Southeast Texas communities were paid a straight daily rate, even though they often worked more than 40 hours per week for a Jefferson City, Missouri-based company.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division's recent corporate-wide investigation of Piney Woods Sanitation Inc. recovered $731,492 in back wages for 337 drivers and loaders employed in the Huntington, Texas-area for the waste hauler.
Investigators determined the employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime requirements by paying a day rate and failing to pay time-and-one-half an employee’s required rate of pay for all hours over 40 in a work week. They identified additional overtime violations because the employer failed to include attendance and safety bonuses when calculating overtime pay.
“Failing to pay overtime denies workers’ legally earned wages and gives their employer an unfair advantage over its competitors who follow the law,” said Wage and Hour District Director Robin D. Mallett in Houston. “Failing to include bonuses paid when calculating overtime rates is an all too frequent violation of labor laws that shorts thousands of workers of their earned wages each year. The Wage and Hour Division encourages all employers to examine their pay practices and make sure they are abiding by the law and to reach out to us for compliance assistance.”
Piney Woods Sanitation manages administrative matters at its...
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