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Shell Oil, Motiva to pay $4.5 million in back wages to nearly 2,700 workers
Press Release, Fuel Fix - September 16, 2014
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.
Shell Oil Co. and Motiva Enterprises have agreed to pay nearly $4.5 million in overtime back wages to 2,677 current and former chemical and refinery employees after federal regulators found violations of federal labor law.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s wage and hour division conducted investigations at eight Shell and Motiva facilities in five states including Texas, Alabama, California, Louisiana and Washington and found that the companies failed to pay the workers for the time they spent at mandatory pre-shift meetings. Investigators also found that the companies failed to record the time that the workers spent at the meetings.
Of the those owed back wages, 634 work in Deer Park and 554 work in Port Arthur, according to the Labor Department.
The companies required the workers to come to the meetings before the start of their 12-hour shifts, according to the Labor Department.
Neither Shell or Motiva immediately returned calls for comment.
“Employers are legally required to pay workers for all hours worked,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said in a written statement. “Whether in the international oil industry, as in this case, or a local family-run restaurant, the Labor Department is working to ensure that responsible employers do not experience a competitive disadvantage because they play by the rules.”
To find out if you’ve got back wages coming, call 1-866-4US-WAGE (487-9243) or the Labor Department’s Houston District Office at 713-339-5500.
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