West Virginia Construction Co. Agrees to Pay $242K in Back Wages, Damages

An oil and gas industry construction company has agreed to pay $242,039 in back wages and damages to 243 employees in West Virginia, the U.S. Labor Department said last month.

Apex Pipeline Service Inc. entered into a consent judgment with the Labor Department requiring the company to pay $121,019 in back wages and the same amount in liquidated damages to employees at Apex’s Nitro facility, the Labor Department said. The consent judgment was approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia-Charleston Division, the agency said in a news release.

The Labor Department said in a news release that Wage and Hour Division investigators found that Apex misclassified field office managers and safety coordinators as exempt from overtime and failed to pay overtime when they worked more than 40 hours in a week.

The division also found that Apex paid overtime at rates below that required by law and failed to maintain required records and to post a Fair Labor Standards Act poster.