Overtime Complaints Increase

Workers' complaints about being denied overtime pay, wages and job leave guaranteed by law rose to the highest level in four years, the Labor Department said yesterday. Penalties for violations and awards of back wages fell.

The department's Wage and Hour Division received 31,786 worker complaints in fiscal 2004. That compared with 31,123 complaints in fiscal 2003.

The division assessed nearly $9 million in civil penalties in the past year, compared with nearly $10 million in fiscal 2003. It collected $196.7 million in back wages, down from $212.5 million the previous year. Much of it involved overtime violations. The number of employees receiving back pay fell to 288,296 from 342,358 in fiscal 2003.

The Labor Department is putting in place overtime rules that Democrats said would take away rights to overtime pay from millions of workers. The Bush administration said more than 100,000 workers could lose overtime pay rights. The administration also said many workers at the lower end of the pay scale could automatically become eligible for overtime.

Employers pushed for this year's revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act to help slow the number of successful lawsuits by workers who claimed they were illegally denied overtime pay.

The impact of the new rules, which took effect in August, is difficult to measure. The Labor Department says employers are reporting that more employees have become newly eligible for overtime pay, and few have lost it. Labor unions predict that more workers will lose overtime now that the election is over, employers know the rules and union workers are starting to negotiate new contracts.

"We remain very concerned about the change in overtime rules, which we think threaten overtime protections for millions of workers," said Christine L. Owens, policy director of the AFL-CIO.

Among the Labor Department's largest overtime cases were against T-Mobile USA Inc., which agreed last year to pay $4.7 million in back wages to 20,546 call-center workers, and Phoenix-based World Super Services, which agreed this year to pay $1.4 million in back wages and penalties to settle overtime and minimum wage charges involving 3,143 workers.