StateImpact, a broadcast and online publication which explores state issues, recently quoted Pete Winebrake of Winebrake and Santillo LLC, in an article on the agreement for oil giant, Halliburton, to pay $18M in back pay for unpaid overtime.
Halliburton discovered the unpaid overtime issue during a self-audit and reported it to the government. After investigation by U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division, Halliburton was found to have incorrectly classified employees in 28 job positions as “exempt from overtime” and failed to have kept accurate record of employees’ work hours. Winebrake says these “misclassifications” are common in the oil and gas industry.
The Labor department called it ‘one of the largest recoveries of overtime wages in recent years’. Thirty-nine workers in Pennsylvania will receive $800,000 in back pay.
Read the StateImpact Halliburton Unpaid Overtime Agreement article here.
Winebrake and Santillo LLC, has recovered millions of dollars for employees in the Oil and Natural Gas industry. In our experience, companies associated with the oil and natural gas industry often cheat employees out of overtime pay.
The illegal practices include:
- Paying on a day-rate basis without including any extra overtime pay for hours worked over 40.
- Using scheduled work hours (rather than actual hours) to determine employee pay.
- Paying a salary and telling the employee he is “exempt” from the overtime law based on his job duties or job title.
- Failing to include bonuses, differential pay, or other extra payments in the calculation of overtime pay.
- Failing to calculate overtime based on a 7-day period.
- Failing to pay for time spent traveling long distances during normal working hours.
- Classifying workers as “independent contractors” rather than employees.
Please call us at (215) 866-1551 if you or someone you know believes that he or she has not received full overtime pay. All phone consultations are confidential and free.