Employees of Broomfield-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. are recouping nearly $1 million in back wages following a three-month investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.
The federal agency’s probe of the aerospace defense contractor found that 904 employees – more than half of whom worked in Colorado – were not paid for overtime or were forced to work during lunch breaks.
The agency said the rest of the employees worked at Ball facilities in New Mexico, Ohio, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Nearly all but $19,000 of the $976,327 owed the employees has been paid out, said Rich Kulczewski, a Department of Labor spokesman.
Ball officials declined to comment on the case, but issued a statement saying the corporation “disagrees with the audit findings.”
The corporation said it cooperated fully with the Department of Labor, including “taking immediate action, based on technical infractions cited by the DOL, to change internal processes and procedures, reclassify certain employees and pay back wages to employees.”
Alex Salaiz, district director for the Labor Department’s wage and hour division, said violations found in the investigation, which began in March, affected two groups of workers.
One group of about 100 senior technicians had been converted to salaried employees after they reached the maximum pay level on the hourly wage scale. However, they were not paid for overtime hours, Salaiz said.
He said that because they were not managers or supervisors, they were owed overtime when they worked beyond their 40 hours each week.
A second group of nearly 800 employees, he said, were routinely required to work through lunch, but weren’t paid for it.
He said employers are responsible for making sure employees take their lunch breaks. When employees work through lunch – even if employees choose to do so – the employer has to pay them, Salaiz said.
Salaiz said Ball cooperated fully and agreed to pay workers money owed them. Those employees were repaid at a rate of one and one-half hours pay for every one hour worked, he said.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-954-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
