The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that two Massachusetts construction companies must pay nearly $2.4 million in back wages and overtime wages to 478 employees in Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut. Read more about this overtime wage lawsuit here.
You might be thinking – 478 employees with $2.4 million in owed wages — How can this happen? Unfortunately, it happens more often that you might think.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Maine’s wage and hour statutes, all employees are entitled to be paid at the rate of one and a half times their normal hourly rate for all time worked in excess of 40 hours a week, unless the employee’s work falls into one of several statutory exemptions to the overtime pay requirements. Unfortunately, some employers will deliberately attempt to classify some or all of their employees as exempt from overtime pay. In this case, these construction companies misclassified their employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying additional overtime wages.
We’ve seen this tactic before. Fortunately, in analyzing these claims, courts focus on the actual facts of the employee’s work day – what tasks does the employee perform, how much control does the employer exercise over the job performance of the employee, etc. – in determining whether or not an employee is entitled to overtime pay.
The overtime statutes and regulations are fairly complex. If you think you may have an overtime claim, you should speak with an employment attorney as soon as possible.
— Posted by Attorney Tom Douglas