Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Contractor Pays $200 Thousand in Back Wages for Failing to Pay Prevailing Wages

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) announced late last week that a Government contractor violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Service Contract Act (SCA) and has agreed to pay nearly $200 thousand in wages and fringe benefits to twenty-two of its current and former employees.

The contractor, Day & Zimmerman Federal Services holds contracts for IT (Information Technology) services at two Marine Corps installations. Their contracts required them to pay prevailing wages for the skill sets required by the contracts. As a result of WHD's investigation, Day & Zimmerman was found to have misclassified those 22 employees resulting in the company paying less than prevailing wage.

As a result of failing to pay prevailing wages, Day & Zimmerman also short-changed these employees their overtime entitlements. And finally, WHD also charged Day & Zimmerman with failing to keep accurate records reflecting the required SCA wage rates and correct work classifications.

The WHD was hardly sympathetic to what appears to have been a misunderstanding or unintentional oversight by Day & Zimmerman. WHD stated that it is the contractor's responsibility to ensure compliance with all the statutes, rules and regulations applying to Government contractors.

The WHD offers quite a number of compliance tools. These can be accessed at www.dol.gov/whd/.

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