Company Refuses to Pay Back Wages, DOL Takes 'Em To Court

Being Stubborn Can Cost You

Posted on 03-May-08 by The Timekeeper

Here’s an unusual story I found by way of the Colorado Lawyer blog.

The basic issue revolved around 302 Denver-based truck drivers who were paid on a per-load basis without regard to the number of hours worked. This means, according to the US DOL, the company (Aggregate Industries, WRE Inc., a subsidiary of Bardon US Corp.) failed to pay any overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 per week from June 25, 2005 through June 3, 2006.

So far a pretty standard story. What you might expect is for the company to pay up, agree to go forth and sin no more, and that would be the end of it.

But here’s where the stubborn part comes in: the company agreed to come into compliance for the future, but refused to pay the computed amount of back wages due these workers. So the DOL has taken ‘em to court to recover. To the tune of $1,094,486.

So let me see if I’m following the story correctly: you’ve agreed to change what you’re doing in the future, which — even if you don’t admit any wrongdoing — sorta implies what you were doing in the past needed to be changed… and you’ve got a bunch of employees who now know you’ve been underpaying them, which might, possibly lead to a bit of disgruntlement (ya think?)… and instead of making things right by your employees (which in turn would lead to the DOL going away quietly), you refuse to make good for your people and force the DOL to take you to court, where odds are you will not only have to pay the back wages but additional penalties.

And even if somehow you win in court, it’s still going to be a long, expensive, time-consuming fight that’s bound to distract you from the business of running your business. Making it seem to me like one of those “even if you win, you lose” type propositions.

Frankly, I’m at a loss as to what there is to be gained from this. Any ideas?