Labor Department says Halliburton will pay $18.3 million in OT to workers misclassified as exempt

[TexasTowelie]

Halliburton has agreed to hand over nearly $18.3 million in overtime wages to 1,016 workers in one of the largest such payouts in years, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

The Labor Department said in a news release that Halliburton had categorized salaried employees in 28 different job positions — including “field service representatives, pipe recovery specialists, drilling tech advisors, perforating specialists and reliability tech specialists” — as not eligible for overtime pay when they worked more than 40 hours a week.

That was a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Labor Department said in the release, noting that “simply paying an employee a salary does not necessarily mean the employee is not eligible for overtime.”

The DOL also said that workers can only qualify as exempt from overtime pay if they’re paid more than $455 per week, and that “job titles do not determine exempt status.”

Read more: http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/09/22/feds-say-halliburton-will-pay-18-3-million-in-overtime-to-workers-misclassified-as-exempt/#33909101=0

Cross-posted in Omaha Steve's Labor Group.

[randys1]

1. Cant be, Halliburton tried to screw workers? I thought they only screwed servicemen and Women.

[gratuitous]

2. If you or I stole millions of dollars

We'd have to pay it back and go to jail. I get the impression Halliburton agreed to pay back a fraction of what they pilfered out of workers' pockets, and no one at Halliburton will be spending any time in the sneezer.