A Pennsylvania manufacturer will pay $358,040 in back wages, liquidated damages and fines after an investigation by the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found its staffing providers violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay overtime to its temporary workers. The WHD determined Havpak Inc. to be a joint employer of the temporary staffing agencies’ employees, and thus liable for the overtime payments.
Havpak, an Erie, Pennsylvania-based packaging, assembly and manufacturing firm, engaged 50 to 100 employees on a daily basis via four staffing firms from May 2015 to June 2018, the WHD said. Investigators found three of those firms — Philadelphia-based DDT Packing Inc. and TTM Packing Inc.; and L&D Staffing in Springfield, Pennsylvania — paid temporary staff straight time for all of the hours that they worked, including those in excess of 40 hours in a workweek. The FLSA requires those hours to be paid as overtime, at time-and-one-half employees’ regular rates of pay.
WHD also found that, in some cases, Havpak failed to include production bonuses into the calculation when determining employees’ overtime rates, resulting in payments at rates lower than those required by law. The employer also violated FLSA recordkeeping requirements when it failed to display a required FLSA poster at its facility.
In addition to the fines, Havpak agreed to change its business practices to comply with the FLSA.
“Using temporary staffing agencies does not absolve employers from their responsibilities under the law,” said Wage and Hour District Director James Cain in Philadelphia. “Employers must ensure that their employees are paid the minimum wage and required overtime rates. We encourage all employers to reach out to us and to use the many tools we offer to help them understand their responsibilities so they can avoid costly violations.”