Two Alabama delivery companies operating as subcontractors for FedEx failed to pay required overtime wages to more than 200 workers, federal labor officials alleged Thursday.
The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division said Birmingham-based Steel City Couriers and Cahaba Valley Couriers wrongly applied an exemption to federal wage law to 235 workers, instead paying them either an hourly or weekly rate without overtime.
The provision — which exempts overtime pay requirements for workers who drive on interstate highways, operate trucks of more than 10,000 pounds, or are employed by a company subject to Transportation Department oversight — should not have been applied to those workers, investigators found.
The companies also failed to maintain accurate records of hours worked. The agency recovered more than $180,000 in back wages owed to the workers.
“Employers who ignore their obligations and violate workers’ rights can find their mistakes costly and their ability to recruit and retain the people they need to run a successful business difficult, if not impossible,” Kenneth Stripling, the Birmingham district director of the Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement.
