A Louisiana based oil field service company has agreed to pay 270 current and former employees almost $620,000 in back wages after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and record-keeping provisions. The investigation found that the employer violated the FLSA by not paying its workers for the time spent at mandatory staff meetings and that the company failed to record the time spent at these meetings.

The mandatory safety and orientation meetings occurred on drilling rigs and platforms at the beginning of each shift. The rig workers were required to come to the meetings 30 minutes before the start of their shift. The employer failed to pay workers for the compensable time spent in the mandatory meetings.
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The Department of Labor found significant wage and hour violations by a roofing company in Denver Colorado, ordering the employer to pay over $140,000 in back wages to employees for unpaid overtime and unpaid minimum wages.

The Department of Labor found significant wage and hour violations for failure to pay overtime after investigating a home building company in Arizona.  The Wage and Hour Division in Phoenix found that the home builder had misclassified employees as independent contractors, illegally avoiding payment of overtime.  The employer agreed to pay back wages and civil money penalties.

Pursuant to the Code of Federal Regulations issued by the United States Department of Labor, under the Fair Labor standards Act, breaks of twenty minutes or less must be paid:

Rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes, are common in the industry. They promote the efficiency of the employee and are customarily paid for as working time. They must be counted as hours worked.  Compensable time of rest periods may not be offset against other working time such as compensable waiting time or on-call time.

29 C.F.R. § 785.18 (emphasis added). This provision requires that breaks in duration of 20 minutes or less be compensated.  See, e.g., Espinosa v. 953 Associates LLC, 280 F.R.D. 113, 121 n. 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) (citing to 29 C.F.R. § 785.18) (“Rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes . . . . must be counted as hours worked.”).  More information on unpaid overtime and wage and hour viovlations can be found at Padilla & Rodriguez, LLP’s website, unpaidovertimelawyer.com.