Manufacturing

As domestic manufacturing companies struggle to compete in a global economy, they often shortchange employees to increase their profit. As a result, thousands of workers in this industry have had and are having their wages stolen by their employer. The top wage violations in the manufacturing industry are:

• Failing to pay workers overtime for all hours worked in excess of 12 per day or 40 per week. Even salaried workers usually are entitled to this overtime pay. To avoid overtime, employers in this industry often will illegally average hours worked over two weeks or bank hours as “comp time”.
• “Shaving” or under-reporting worked hours to avoid paying for those hours. Often this takes the form of automatic deductions for meal/rest breaks that never were taken or that were less than thirty minutes of uninterrupted time.
• Not paying workers for certain tasks performed before, during or after their regular shift such as driving to the job (or between jobs), receiving instructions or picking up tools, oiling, greasing, cleaning or installing equipment, employee meetings, training programs, putting on, taking off, cleaning or maintaining gear and paperwork. Often employers illegally claim that this work is “off the clock”.
• Paying per diem instead of wages to avoid overtime pay.
• Paying a flat daily or job rate without consideration of the number of hours worked and the requirement to pay overtime.
• Failing to provide meal and rest breaks.

If your employer is violating the manufacturing overtime pay laws, you (and other employees) may be entitled to thousands of dollars of back pay. Please contact us for a free and confidential case evaluation or simply to learn more about manufacturing workers and overtime pay laws.