On Friday, September 23, 2020, Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP alongside Bruckner Burch PLLC, filed a collective actionagainst Kayden Industries USA Inc., a servicing company for the oil and gas industry, for unpaid wages. This lawsuit represents similarly situated current and former Solids Control Workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act (“NMMWA”) to recover unpaid overtime premiums for all overtime hours worked. Solids Control Workers (“SCWs”) have alleged the energy company capped their pay after shaving time off their hours worked or preventing them from reporting their actual number of hours worked. Affected workers include all current and former SCWs who worked for Kayden during the last three years that were paid with an hourly rate, a salary, and/or job bonus.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Texas federal court, specifically alleged that due to a pattern, practice, and policy imposed by Kayden, they willfully violated the FLSA and the NMMWA when they failed to pay its SCWs the time and a half overtime rate for unpaid hours over 40 per week as well as applying the time and a half multiplier to nondiscretionary bonus pay to calculate the right pay rates. The plaintiff claims that SCWs commonly worked for weeks on end, usually stretches of 25 days at a time, with 15-hour shifts per day. They were usually paid an hourly rate plus a per diem. The FLSA requires that any additional payment or bonus that is a consistent part of a workers’ pay must be taken into account when calculating overtime rates. This was not the case for these SCWs who were also prohibited from reporting all of their hours worked and eventually wrongly reclassified as overtime-exempt salaried employees, despite their schedules and job duties remaining exactly the same. The collective action lawsuit seeks to recover all unpaid overtime as well as liquidated damages.
If you work for Kayden Industries USA Inc. or a similar company in the oil and gas industry, make sure you are getting paid for all of your hours worked and at the correct rate. Unfortunately, this industry is notorious for skirting wage laws in order to save on labor costs. You can reach our firm, Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP, for a free and confidential consultation at (212)300-0375 or you can visit our website here for additional helpful information regarding your work rights.
You can also view the filed complaint here.