A business publishing company in Malvern, Pa., was ordered by a court on Dec. 16, 2015, to pay $1.75 million in back wages and liquidated damages to nearly 6,000 employees. These employees were not paid for the time they spent taking short breaks (such as to use the restrooms). The Department of Labor filed a suit in 2012 challenging this practice of the company.
The company involved is Progressive Business Publications. The company had a policy of not paying for the short breaks that it's employees took during their working hours. Instead, the company had a policy of allowing employees to take breaks any time, and for any length of time. However, these break times would be unpaid. As a result, even employees earning minimum wage had their wage proportionately reduced by the amount of time spent taking short breaks. So, the actual wage earned by employees on the minimum wage ended up being less than the minimum of $7.25 an hour, according to USA Today.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued the order on Dec. 16, 2105. The order covers employees that worked at the company between July 2009 and July 2013. The order covers employees that worked in 14 separate offices across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Progressive and the Department of Labor have to submit to the court, by Thursday, a plan for how they are going to make these court-ordered payments out to the employees, according to the New York Daily News.
The specific legal violation on the basis of which the Department of Labor filed a law suit in 2012 against Progressive was that the break policy of the company ended up making the employees earn less than their minimum wage.
The Department of Labor has issued a press release in this matter. "The Fair Labor Standards Act does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about five to 20 minutes), the law considers the breaks compensable work hours that must be included in the sum of hours for the work week and considered in determining overtime," according to the press release issued by the Department of Labor.
Progressive Systems is now appealing this decision and believes it has valid legal grounds to file an appeal.
