Texas Workers Get Their Back Overtime & Employers Get Punished
both the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and Texas labor laws – including, failure to pay overtime to employees who worked up to 96 hours per week, keeping a second set of time records to hide overtime hours and demanding kickbacks from workers.
While a somewhat extreme example of blatant wage theft and abuse, this case should send a message to the many workers in Texas who are being unlawfully denied the overtime pay they are legally entitled to. The message is four-fold:
A Belton Texas based manufacturer of heavy duty wire rope used in construction, mining and oil and gas has been ordered to pay over $165,000 to 31 of its workers to compensate them for unpaid back overtime. While repayment of unpaid overtime wages is the norm in wage and hour cases, it is rather uncommon for criminal penalties to assess against the owners/managers of a business. In this case, however, due to the repeat and egregious nature of the company’s conduct and labor law violations, criminal charges were pressed against management for which they were sentenced to time served and fined.
This case resulted from two long term investigations that revealed serious violations of - You need to be informed and aware of your rights under federal and Texas wage and hour law,
- You cannot rely on the boss or Human Resources for critical information regarding the laws on overtime pay and if they apply to your job.
- There is something that can and should be done when you suspect that your employer is violating the wage payment laws, and
- The end result can be a substantial recovery that puts unpaid overtime wages back where they belong – in the worker’s pocket.