Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

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SAN ANTONIO -- The U.S. Department of Labor filed suit against Sentinel Refuse LLC, San Antonio, Texas, for failing to pay 10 current and former waste truck drivers, laborers and administrative personnel $48,296 in overtime wages, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The complaint was filed in the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division, following an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division in San Antonio.

“Employees were paid straight time for overtime hours worked,” said Nicasio Flores, director of Wage and Hour’s district office in San Antonio. “In addition, the company failed to maintain accurate payroll records and refused to provide requested records to investigators.”

The investigation, covering the two-year period Oct. 30, 2002 to Oct. 30, 2004, determined that Sentinel Refuse paid employees a straight salary regardless of the number of hours worked in the week and failed to keep accurate payroll records. Some employees worked up to 60 hours in a work week without overtime compensation.

Sentinel Refuse, a commercial waste and refuse company, employs about 10 workers in San Antonio. The company also operates two other locations in Austin and Houston. Multiple locations owned and controlled by the same person with the same business purposes are considered an enterprise under the FLSA.

The FLSA requires employers to pay covered, non-exempt employees the minimum wage for all hours worked and time-and-one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 per week. Employers must also maintain accurate time and payroll records.

The Wage and Hour Division recovered nearly $200 million in back wages in fiscal year 2004 for more than 288,000 workers. Average days to resolve a complaint decreased in fiscal 2004 from 108 days to 92 days.

For more information about the Fair Labor Standards Act, call the San Antonio Wage and Hour office at (210) 308-4515 or the Department of Labor’s toll-free help line at 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243). Information is also available on the Internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov. Information on the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act is also available at www.dol.gov/fairpay.

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