labor lawAdivision of labor law center

An aerospace defense contractor based in Broomfield, Colorado was ordered to pay almost $1 million in back wages to 904 employees in four states plus the District of Columbia.

The U.S. Department of Labor charges that Ball Aerospace and Technologies, Inc. failed to pay $976,327 in overtime to employees in Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Georgia and Washington D.C.

According to sources, an investigation showed that once senior technicians reached the maximum hourly rate, they were arbitrarily and unlawfully changed to salaried-exempt status. The change in pay rate did not include a significant increase in responsibilities. Under federal law, in order to be exempt from overtime pay, employees must have decision-making powers, significant administrative duties or they must supervise three or more people. None of those conditions were met for the 111 technicians in question, so they are due $383, 235 in unpaid overtime.

In addition, all employees were routinely required to work through their lunch periods without any pay. Even if they were not able to take a lunch break, an hour was deducted from their time cards every work day. This violation resulted in payments of $593,092 to 793 employees.

Ball agreed to keep more accurate payroll records in the future, in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA, and to pay all required wages to employees in the future.

In late July, the U.S. Department of Labor forced Desert Plastering, Inc., a Las Vegas Nevada firm, to pay nearly $1.2 million in back pay to 1060 employees. The feds found that Desert Plastering had not paid required overtime to lathers, finishers, plasterers and estimators who worked up to 58 hours per week.

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.

The Fair Labor Standard Act requires that most U.S. employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage, which is currently $5.85 per hour. The FLSA also mandates that employees must be paid 1.5 times their usual hourly rate for each hour over 40 in a single work week.

Many employers mistakenly believe that any worker paid by salary is exempt from overtime. The FLSA does provide a number of exemptions to the overtime law for bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales jobs. In general, employees must meet job duty and salary tests, to be exempt from overtime.

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.

HR professionals or owners are faced with my conflicting HR questions or situations everyday and how to solve the issues can vary depending on who you ask.  Many business owners or HR professionals often ponder the same question, “Is there an agency or source where I can go to get guidance or assistance on these HR issues?”.  Well now there is a solution!  www.HumanResourceBlog.com is now available for any HR professional to come and share their thoughts, questions, or issues and to openly discuss the situation or issue at hand.  Where else would you be able to go to find a community or center that has professionals sharing your same common problems and also having suggestions for you to possibly consider.  Like they say, two brains is better than one.  In this particular case, it’s two professionals better than one! 

www.HumanResourceBlog.com has a goal to build a community strictly for HR professionals all across the states to be able to post and receive answers from actual professionals in the same situation or have the knowledge to possibly guide you to answer.  State laws vary from state to state.  If your organization operates in multi-states, this is the place for you.  www.HumanResourceBlog.com does not limit the answer to any particular state or topic.  It does not have boundaries and/or limitations in the state the question is deriving from.  If you are seeking an answer to your HR question, www.HumanResourceblog.com will be the solution!

Answers are posted daily from Real HR experts that are emailed the questions instantly.  There is no automation to the postings of answers.  The website is strictly for owners, HR professionals, supervisors  and managers to post their HR related issues, questions, or concerns.  Post your questions today! The web site is not intended for employees to post employee related questions. 

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Hope to see you there!

In the state of Georgia, they’ve gone digital when it comes to reporting new hires. That is a good thing for human resource departments who are capable of handling this aspect of the labor law on the Web. It works by having to download the electronic software off of the Georgia government’s Web site that allows you to communicate with their new hire reporting bureau online.

Of course, not all employers, including perhaps yourself, are ready to take that leap. There are all sorts of technical issues you’d have to deal with, such as whether you have the Internet connection that’s fast enough to make the transfer of information worth your while over the Internet.

Then there are a whole host of privacy issues that we could get into. Don’t even get me started! Kidding aside, of course, you’d have to trust your connection and the state of Georgia’s online feed with all of this very personal information about your employees and about your company. Remember—hackers abound on the Internet.

Online fraud and theft is still one of the fastest growing crimes in the country, and can explain why many employers have employee files as hard copy backups for much of their personnel files, or even as their primary source of data storage.

That’s why Georgia still allows employers to report their new hires the old fashioned way, through non-electronic reporting methods. Through this method, you can use your own new hire form or file, a government W-4 form, you payroll forms, or other similar forms, as long as they contain the important basics about the new employee: their name, your federal employer identification number and address, and their address.

When you have all of this organized and ready to send to the state of Georgia, you can simply fax or mail the form to the appropriate state office.

Throughout the state, we all like to know a little more about what is happening here. The Georgia (GA) Department of Human Resources is a great place to go to learn more about our state as a whole, or at least as it related to employment and business within our state. This department is one that monitors and helps to coach us all in finding the necessary things that we need including help with unemployment, worker’s compensation and helps businesses to get started as well. Yet, the Department of Labor, as it is also called, also provides a good amount of information to us too.

For example, the Georgia Department of Human Resources regularly lets us know what the fastest growing jobs within our state are. This information is gathered through employers and it allows for a good look at what industries are doing well within our state as well. The information that they provides is not necessarily about where the most people work, but rather where the demand for qualified workers is the highest. Therefore, these are the places where there are the most available jobs within out state.

The most in demand work force currently is that of retail sales people. In this case, over the next 5 to 6 years, it is estimated that this field will continue to grow up to 35% more so than it currently is at. In addition, the demand for registered nurses is also quite high. In this case, there is likely to be a sore to over 36% growth within the next several years in this field. Other in demand occupations include customer services representatives, cashiers, food preparation and serving people and general operations management.

The Georgia Department of Human Resources provides this information to us, the people of this state so that we can better see where our state is headed in the coming years.

Georgia has recently passed the Smokefree Air Act. By passing this law they now are prohibiting smoking in most public places and also have new guidelines for places that still want to allow smoking. This new law is hoping to dramatically decrease the rate of illness associated with second hand smoke.

I know that people can become ill due to second hand smoke even when they have never smoked themselves. With this new law it will stop anyone from smoking in most public places and places that are occupied by people under age 18, therefore cutting down the risk of illness or even death. Restaurants and bars that are planning to service and employ only the 18 and over crowd will not be subject to this prohibition. For most other areas there will now be designated smoking sections for those people who wish to continue smoking.   

Second hand smoke contains numerous chemicals that can be extremely harmful to the body. We are all aware of the correlation between second hand smoke and many cancers as well as emphysema. It is even more damaging I have heard when it comes to children. That is I assume why they are prohibiting smoking in areas where children congregate.

I read that the Georgia health and safety workers are planning to visit and observe other states that have adopted a no smoking policy. This way they can see potential problems within the new law as well as convey the message to Georgians that the main concern is the health and well being of their citizens.

Georgia updated its current labor law poster to reflect these new mandatory changes. If you have not yet updated your Georgia Labor Law Poster it is available as a combination with the Federal laws and it is also available as a Georgia State Only poster. They both have the most current and up to date laws refelcted

Thank you! 

Christine M. Carter

Business Compliance Advisor