The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division continues its focus on independent contractor misclassification. This week and last week it announced several companies are being required to pay hundreds of thousands in back pay for IC misclassification and overtime violations.

• The US District Court in Nevada ordered Las Vegas-based telemarketing company Intelliconnect to pay $280,000 in minimum wage and overtime back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to 398 employees for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Wage and Hour Division announced Monday. According to the Wage and Hour Division, Intelliconnect from January 2010 through December 2012 classified its telemarketers as independent contractors, which denied them minimum wage and overtime wages. Investigators found the employer paid the telemarketers based on a percentage of individual sales, resulting in many of them working for days and weeks for little or no pay, according to the department.
• A Portland, Ore., businessman, David Emami, and three of his affiliated companies were ordered to pay 33 Portland-area employees $512,290 in unpaid wages and liquidated damages, the Wage and Hour Division announced Monday. Maintenance, landscaping and construction workers employed by Emami had two time cards. One time card recorded a morning start time and a midafternoon end time; employees would clock in later in the afternoon using the second time card. The time cards were issued by different companies, one from Emami’s Oak Grove Cinemas and another from Barrington Management or Barrington Ventures. Emami claimed employees were independent contractors during the hours they spent working for the Barrington companies. All hours were paid at straight time. The Wage and Hour Division also reported Emami violated anti-retaliation provision of the FLSA by threatening to retaliate against employees for cooperating with the department’s investigation.
• Jointly owned, Texas-based firms Specialty Painting & Wall Covering Inc. and M&S Enterprise paid 22 painters and sheetrock installers $108,783 in overtime back wages, the Wage and Hour Division announced Thursday. An investigation found violations of the FLSA overtime and record-keeping provisions and that M&S misclassified workers as independent contractors.