Temp Agency Agrees to Pay More Than $1.8 Million in Back Wages
888 Consulting Group Inc., a Dedham, Mass.-based temporary employee placement company doing business as TAC Worldwide has agreed to pay 973 employees across the country a total of $1,866,943 in overtime back wages to resolve a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
DOL's suit was filed following an investigation by the department's Wage and Hour Division which disclosed that the company had misclassified as exempt from FLSA's overtime requirements, four employees at its headquarters, and 969 temporary placement employees across the country. The headquarters employees held positions as payroll systems analysts and accountants, while workers in other parts of the U.S. held temporary positions including: project manager, business or project analyst, technical support, field engineer, business analyst, technical writer, financial analyst, network engineer, systems administrator, electrical engineer, technical manager, sales representative, software tester, help desk representative, network administrator, and telecom engineer.
FLSA requires that employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage, and time and one-half their regular rates of pay for hours worked beyond 40 per week. The law also requires that employers maintain accurate records of employees' wages, hours and conditions of employment. FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees. To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet certain job duty and salary tests.
A consent judgment prohibits the defendant from future violations of FLSA's classification and overtime requirements. It orders the defendant to pay the back wages covering the period between Feb. 18, 2006, and June 21, 2008. The company agreed to entry of the judgment without admitting liability but was very cooperative with the Labor Department when the violations were brought to its attention, working with Wage and Hour Division officials to recognize and correct the classification errors.