General Atomics Aeronautical Systems paid $945,000 in back wages after the US Dept. of Labor found it violated federal wage requirements when paying 901 employees at job sites across the nation.
The San Diego-based manufacturer of unmanned aircraft and surveillance systems is under contract with the US Air Force. Contractors are required by federal law to pay workers the prevailing wage rates and fringe benefits in their geographic area.
“Failing to pay the correct prevailing wages hurts workers, and it also negatively affects other contractors who pay proper wages,” said David Weil, administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. “We appreciate that General Atomics was cooperative throughout the investigation and immediately came into compliance. They also ensured that all employees working on their contracts were paid back wages once the issues were brought to their attention.”
The company agreed to pay employees the highest prevailing wage among all of its job sites going back for a six-year period and upgraded their time-keeping system, the DOL said in an Aug. 27 press release.
General Atomics did not immediately return a request for comment by Advisen.
Investigators with the DOL’s Wage and Hour division determined that the company paid employees assigned to work outside of their home areas the prevailing wage rates for the area they came from–not the area in which they worked. The required wages at the remote job sites were sometimes higher than the wages the workers were actually paid.
General Atomics’ time-tracking system tracked hours and job numbers on which employees worked but not work-site locations, the DOL said. The employer then failed to adjust the prevailing wages paid to employees when they worked away from their home base.
The McNamara-O-Hara Service Contract Act requires contractors and subcontractors performing services on covered federal contracts in excess of $2,500 to pay their service workers no less than the wages and fringe benefits prevailing in the locality–or rates contained in a predecessor contractor’s collective bargaining agreement, the DOL said.
For more information about federal wage laws administered by the Wage and Hour Division, call the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Information is also available at http://www.dol.gov/whd.
