A chain of Long Island, New York, gas stations and mini-marts based in Riverhead has paid 70 employees $575,000 in overtime back wages to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Named as defendants in the lawsuit, filed June 21, 2004, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, are E.M. and T., Inc. and S and S Petroleum.
The suit was the result of an investigation by the department's Wage and Hour Division. The complaint alleged violations of the overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the FLSA by the defendants at their 16 gas stations and mini-marts located throughout Long Island.
Specifically, it alleged that, since January 2000, the defendants required their low-wage employees to work many hours of overtime without properly paying them for those overtime hours. The defendants also failed to maintain adequate and accurate records of the employees' wages, hours, and other conditions of employment, according to the lawsuit.
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