Employment and FLSA Litigation - Friday, May 21, 2010 15:43 - 0 Comments

School Bus Company Settles Lawsuit

First Student Inc., a school bus company operating in Maryland, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit involving overtime pay.  Brought by former employees that were bus drivers and aides, the lawsuit alleged that First Student had avoided paying overtime compensation to the employees by recording the employees’ various duties separately.

For example, if an employee spent 30 hours per week driving a school bus and 20 hours training other employees, the employee’s time spent working would not be documented as a 50-hour workweek. Instead, the time spent working would be recorded separately so as to indicate that the person worked less than 40 hours that particular week. The Fair Labor Standard Act, the federal act governing wage and hour issues such as overtime compensation, requires an employer to pay one-time-and-a-half the rate of an employee’s pay when the employee works more than 40 hours per week.

Source: www.schoolbusworkersunited.org