labor lawAdivision of labor law center

Alexander J. Passantino has been named as Acting Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. He will serve for about one year, finishing out President George W. Bush’s term in office.

Passantino has been Deputy Administrator for the division since October 2006. He first joined the U.S. Department of Labor in November 2005 as a senior policy advisor to the assistant secretary for the Employment Standards Administration.

“As deputy administrator, Alex has made a number of significant contributions toward ensuring that the labor standards laws of this country are fully enforced and that working men and women receive the protections they are entitled to under the law,” said Victoria A. Lipnic, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards. “I am pleased that he has agreed to assume the acting position of Administrator so that he may continue his excellent work with the department.”

The Wage and Hour Division is responsible for administering programs relating to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, immigration statutes, various government contracting laws, and other laws establishing labor standards.

Most importantly to most employers, it enforces federal employment laws including the minimum wage and overtime laws.

Before joining the Department of Labor, Passantino was an associate at Hunton and Williams LLP. Earlier in his career, he was an associate at King and Ballow. His legal experience concentrated on labor and employment, including employment discrimination, employment contract disputes, and wage and hour matters.

Passantino received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Emory University and his law degree, cum laude, from the University Of Georgia School Of Law. He is a graduate of Regis High School in New York City and lives in Virginia with his wife, Kristin, and their daughter.

During Passantino’s first year as Deputy Administrator, the U. S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division collected more than $171 in back wages for some 246,000 employees in 2006. Thos wages were a result of 31,987 “compliance actions” in 2006

Under Passantino’s continued tenure as Deputy Administrator, the U.S. Department of Labor pursued a number of very high profile cases in 2007.

In August, five jointly-operated restaurants in Long Island, New York were ordered to pay almost $1 million to 191 low-wage workers. The employees had been forced to work long hours for wages less than the minimum wage, without overtime pay.  The court ordered that if the employers did not pay up, their restaurants could be sold and the proceeds used to pay the employees.

In early July, the U.S. Department of Labor forced 107 subcontractors of KBR, Inc. of Virginia to pay some $1.5 million in back wages and benefits for up to 2,600 workers who participated in the Hurricane Katrina recovery project. The construction workers were involved in repairs to the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport Mississippi or the Naval Air Station/Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. The U.S. Department of Labor is still searching for some of the workers involved in that case. Anyone who believes that they are owed back wages for these projects can contact the nearest U.S. Department of Labor office. The average payment per worker in that case was $616.

Earlier this year, under a voluntary agreement to prevent a federal suit, Wal-Mart, Inc. agreed to pay $33 million in unpaid overtime wages to 86,680 employees throughout the nation. An internal audit revealed that the company had incorrectly classified some employees as “salary-exempt” when in fact they were entitled to overtime pay. In other cases, the company admitted that it had based overtime pay on the employee’s base hourly rate, not including incentives and bonuses in the employee’s average rate as required by law.

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