Dive Brief:
- Long work hours are fairly standard in the oil and gas industry, and in return, according to the Department of Labor, employees in that sector expect to be paid fairly and fully, as federal law mandates. However, 750 workers employed by one of the world’s largest oil and gas employers were not treated in that way, the Labor Dept. reports.
- An investigation by the Labor Dept.'s Wage and Hour Division found that three subsidiaries of Chevron Corporation violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime provisions, after failing to pay hourly field operators for the hours they worked during mandatory pre-shift relief meetings (when they turned over their duties to employees on the next shift).
- With that, Chevron will pay more than $750,000 in overtime back wages, and an equal, additional amount in damages to the affected workers. The investigation also identified recordkeeping violations as the company failed to record accurately the number of hours employees worked, the Labor Dept. reports.
Dive Insight:
While it's not clear how much impact HR might have in this specific industry when it comes to compensation, employers in any industry should ensure they are paying workers for all time that they work, regardless of how the work is classified.
The Labor Dept.'s efforts should send a strong message to employers – violating the law at the expense of your workers can be very expensive. Yet, it seems there continues to be an ongoing stream of employers willing to take their chances and winding up on the wrong end of the FLSA. In fact, in oil and gas alone, since 2012 the division recovered more than $41.5 million in back wages for more than 29,000 employees in an initiative focused on oil and gas, and related industries.
