The US Department of Labor said a Louisville, Kentucky-based staffing company that provides aviation maintenance and repair workers to airlines will pay $538,000 in back wages and damages to 129 workers in Mobile, Alabama.

TechFlyte LLC paid time-and-a-half for overtime at illegally reduced overtime pay rates, according to the Department of Labor. It also labeled a position of employees’ wages as a per diem to obscure workers’ true pay rates.

The company paid $269,038 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages for a total of $538,076, according to the department. It also assessed the company $63,196 in civil penalties for the willful nature of the violations.

Workers in this case had been assigned to VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering in Mobile, according to the department.

A separate investigation found similar violations related to the payment of per diem wages by TechFlyte LLC in Kansas City in June 2020, the department reported. In that case, the department recovered $18,755 in back wages for 22 workers.

“Using per diem pay practices to avoid or reduce overtime owed to employees is illegal,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Kenneth Stripling in Birmingham, Alabama. “When per diem payments are applied to pay as a screen, it’s a scheme that defrauds workers and taxpayers, and hurts law-abiding companies.”