Dive Brief:
- A federal judge approved Monday a $1.8 million agreement between Caterpillar subsidiary Solar Turbines, Inc. and a group of employees to settle a series of wage and hour claims (Diaz v. Solar Turbines, Inc., No. 3:20-cv-01156 (S.D. Calif. Aug. 8, 2022)).
- In the class-action suit, employees alleged that Solar Turbines committed unfair labor practices and failed to provide overtime pay, accurate wage statements, wages due at termination, and meal and rest period premiums as required by California state law.
- The highest individual settlement pay is estimated to be $1,098.75, while the average payment is listed at $566.19, according to court documents. The court certified the employees’ proposed class for purposes of the settlement.
Dive Insight:
The case is the latest in a series of high-dollar wage-and-hour settlements in recent months.
In June, a nursing care chain agreed to pay more than $2.9 million to settle the U.S. Department of Labor’s allegations that it failed to pay wages for meal periods of less than 20 minutes and didn’t add bonuses and other incentive pay to the employees’ hourly rate when calculating overtime.
A series of wage-and-hour lawsuits have followed the early 2022 Kronos outage, with one of the most recent cases involving a West Virginia health system.
At the federal level, regulators are expected to issue new overtime regulations under the Federal Labor Standards Act in October. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case that could have implications for the FLSA’s highly-compensated employee exemption from overtime pay.
