Halliburton to pay employees $18.3M in back wages

Halliburton has agreed to pay $18.3 million in back wages to 1,016 employees nationwide, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced Tuesday.

The DOL said its Wage and Hour Division conducted a multi-year investigation of the oil and gas services provider and found that employees’ positions had been incorrectly categorized as exempt from overtime pay.

{mosads}The agency said the company failed to pay salaried employees who were working as field service representatives, pipe recovery specialists, drilling tech advisors, perforating specialists and reliability tech specialists who worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, which is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The company also failed to keep records of employee hours worked.

“Employers who don’t pay their employees the wages they have earned don’t just hurt their workers, they undercut employers who play by the rules,” Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said in a news release. “That’s why we work every day to help level the playing field.”

The FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for individuals employed in bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales positions. Certain employees in computer-related positions are also exempt. The DOL said those employees, however, have to meet certain tests regarding their job duties and make less $455 per week.

Halliburton, one of the world’s largest oil and gas services provider, has more than 70,000 employees in more than 80 countries worldwide.