Missouri workers who have established employment profiles and curated contacts on the online networking site LinkedIn may be interested to learn that the popular internet site has entered into an agreement to pay 359 former and current employees over $3.34 million of overtime back wages along with more than $2.5 million of liquidated damages.
Following an investigation from the federal Department of Labor, it was discovered that LinkedIn had run afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act with its record-keeping practices and overtime payments. The affected employees work or were formerly employed in New York, California, Nebraska and Illinois.
LinkedIn has agreed to pay all back wages that are due their former and current employees as well as take the necessary steps to prevent occurrences of future wage violations.
The administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division said, “This company has shown a great deal of integrity by fully cooperating with investigators and stepping up to the plate without hesitation to help make workers whole.”
Under provisions of federal wage laws, non-exempt, covered employees shall be paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or more for all the hours they work, plus time-and-a-half of the regular hourly rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 per week.
Investigators learned that LinkedIn had failed to record and pay employees for all the hours they worked during a work week. The company then agreed to provide compliance training for those workers who were affected as well as prohibiting all work done off-the-clock for any non-exempt managers and employees.
San Francisco’s Wage and Hour district director commented that work done off-the-clock occurs altogether too often for America’s workers, and she urges both large and small employers to review their pay practices to ensure that workers know their rights in the workplace.
Under provisions of federal labor statutes, employers found to be in violation of the law are in most cases legally liable for employees’ back wages, together with an equal amount of liquidated damages paid directly to the affected workers.
When in doubt of your status as an affected worker in an alleged wage dispute, an employment law attorney is one source of clarity and potential resolution.
Source: The Kansas City Star, “LinkedIn to pay for labor law violations” Diane Stafford, Aug. 04, 2014
