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Alabama staffing firm to pay almost $134,000 in per diem probe

December 07, 2015

An Alabama staffing agency, NSC Technologies Inc., will pay 218 employees nearly $134,000 in back wages, the US Department of Labor announced.

Investigators from the department’s Wage and Hour Division’s Mobile District Office found the employer illegally labeled a portion of workers’ regular wages as per diem payments in order to exclude these wages when calculating overtime premiums, in violation of the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The improper pay practice also resulted in record-keeping violations because the employer failed to maintain accurate records of employees’ wages and actual hours worked.

Legitimate per diem payments are compensation for living expenses incurred on behalf of the employer, such as transportation, meals, and lodging.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing too many companies utilizing this evasive pay practice to unlawfully deny their employees their hard-earned overtime,” said Frank McGriggs, Wage and Hour Division’s deputy regional administrator in Atlanta. “We are concerned that, in this competitive market, labor service providers are looking to each other for new and creative ways to cut labor costs by engaging in illegal practices that short workers."